I’m so boooooorrrrred! Where the freaking sassafrass is Val? They super should’ve been here by now! Like, what gives!? I’ve never been a people watcher and all I have to do right now is people watch.
I’m pretty sure that this is the town hall, more so now than I was last night, because of the amount and kind of traffic it’s getting. Early in the morning it had a lot of people dressed smartly going in, presumably to do bureaucracy. Later, getting towards noon, there were a lot of people in more common clothes lining up, presumably with some problem or other that they needed the government's help with. That seems in line with ideals from the real world, which is cool of the devs to put in a more medieval fantasy game. Same with the Council of Chiefs. Makes it seem like the wind is changing from purely imperial powers to something more nuanced.
Maaaan, I wanted to check out the crafters in town with Val today but I guess they’re going to keep me waiting. Ugh. Fuck it! I’m just gonna think about different alchemical recipes to pass the time, Val can hang out wherever they want to I guess.
To make the most basic potion of healing you need 1 part medicinal grass to 2 parts green slime. To increase its efficacy, add 1 part lavender. To upgrade it to a mid-grade potion, use 1 part willow bark to-
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“I’m going to the town hall to meet a friend.”
“Oh you have a friend in town?” Trunor asked me, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, at least, she should be here by now. We got separated on the road but had agreed to meet at the town hall on such an occasion. She may not be here yet, I’m unsure.”
“Oh, well, if you want a guide to the hall I’m more than happy to oblige.” Trunor said amiably.
“Oh no he’s not! My dear Trunor here’s got plenty of work to keep him busy after his trip, not least of which is checking the inventory after the attack, unloading the wagon of said inventory, writing up the report on imported goods for the aldermen. And that’s not even all the work that needs done aside from running the store which his lovely wife and daughters will be doing meanwhile. I’m sorry to say dearie that you’ll be on your own for this trip. Don’t you worry though, it’s the largest building in town, right near the square you came in from, you can’t miss it!”
I look over at Trunor to see his reaction to his wife’s rapid monologue and find him nodding mechanically and eating his breakfast with methodical movements. He seems used to giving way to his wife’s high-speed chatter. Looking at their daughters, Emmy seems too focused on her food to pay any attention to anything else and Lexandra- I mean Lexy, seems to be a mirror of her father.
“Thank you ma’am. Also, I’m embarrassed to ask now after all you’ve done for me, but what is your name that I might thank you properly?”
“Oh my! Did I truly not tell you before? Oh I’ll lose my head next! Don’t think too poorly of me for this dearie, but I’m Angelica. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, Miss Angelica. Alright, I’ll be off now.”
“Take care dearie.”
“Yes, safe travels and swift returns, Miss Valkyrie.”
“Good luck with all your work, Mr. Trunor.”
“Thank you Miss.”
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-and 3 parts of troll toe nail adds a regenerative effect. Adding more will only waste material while not enough replaces the regen effect with a poison effect targeting the user. To make a potion of warmth, you need 1 part volcanic sunflower, 2 parts salamander salts, and 2 parts antlion sand. For max potency, burn the sunflower and collect both the smoke and the ashes. Heat the salts over low constant heat and let the gasses released mix with the smoke while mixing the ashes with the sand. Allow the gas and smoke mixture to settle, add the solid mix of ash and sand to the bottle with the coalesced gasses, then mix in a small amount of fairy spring water, mix by gently twirling the bottle in a clockwise motion until it turns a burnt orange color, at which point stopper it and shake vigorously until it is bright orange.
To make-”
“You have 1 new message from user Valkyrie ‘Val’”
Chat with Val:
Val: Look down!
Well twist my arm why don’t you? I look down to see Val trying to loiter nonchalantly and failing miserably. I guess I should go save them from all the stares they’re getting by letting them move away from here. Swooping down, I end up behind them and shout next to their ear.
“BOO!”
Oh man, the way they jumped out of their skin was priceless. The way they reached for their sword handle, however, wasn’t. They then turn towards me with a hurt look. Oh no, you can’t look at me like that, I’ll feel like I kicked a puppy.
“Hey buddy! I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me!”
“Oh, sorry. I got held up at Mr. Trunor’s house. His daughters made breakfast for me.”
“Oh. That sounds nice.”
“Yeah it was.”
Hmmmmmm. I wonder how old this other daughter is. Maybe Val made a friend? That’d be nice. I wonder what her name is and what she’s like.
“So where are we headed to Rose?”
“Well I guess there’s the crafters, but don’t you need to speak to the Chiefs?”
“Oh, I suppose I do need to talk to them. I don’t know how to get a meeting with them though.”
“Hmm, That’s fair. Maybe they’ll find you if they need you? I’m sure people are keeping tabs on you.”
“Wait, really? Why would they do that?”
“Well look around. You’re both the only human I can see around, the only one wearing clothes of such fine material, and one of only a handful of people besides the guards wearing a weapon. You’re pretty noticeable even without your penchant for talking to yourself.”
“I’m not talking to myself, I’m talking to you.”
“Yes, the invisible girl that no one else can hear. I’m sure everyone knows I’m here.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
“Don’t worry about it Val, I figure let’s just head out to the crafters for the time being. Do you know where they are?”
“I. No. I don’t.”
“Whelp, guess you’re asking around.”
“I guess I am.”
Val looked around and everyone else in the square quickly averted their gaze. Well, that’s a good sign that we’ll get the information we need. Walking up to the first person they saw, a leporin woman who towered over Val, Val ignores her expression like a deer in the headlights and starts talking.
“Excuse me ma’am, I’m new to town and was wondering if you could give me some directions.”
“Oh, hahha, sure. Um, what’re you looking for kid?” She laughed nervously and looked like a child caught doing something bad and trying to weasel their way out of it, though Val seemed a bit oblivious to the whole situation.
“The crafting district.”
“‘District’ huh? That’d be optimistic, Fellpoint having districts. Nah, but there is Maker’s Street. Lot’s of craftspeople live there, thus the name.”
“That sounds perfect! Can you direct me there?”
“Oh! Right, directions. Um, if you head west down Kepler Avenue, it intersects with Maker’s Street after a while.”
“Thank you ma’am!”
“Yeah, um, have a good day?”
“You too!”
Val hurried off in the direction the woman indicated, though I looked back and saw that she was looking a bit embarrassed. Serves her right, I know that Val is the best kid in the world, despite the fact that they look like they’re talking to no one most of the time. Kepler Avenue seemed to be a higher end residential street, the houses were a bit bigger than most other streets and most had glass windows which, while not that rare in a bigger city like Reinhold, aren’t common in a smaller settlement like this one. Which means that either there is a thriving glass business in this city or, slightly more likely, that they were imported at great expense.
Looking closer at the homes, I could tell that a lot of care was put into them based on how the foundations were laid: the stones were fit together quite snugly with very little mortar used, which means that a lot of time went into laying them. The road here is also paved with stones that are laid with care. I didn’t really think to look at the paving elsewhere in Fellpoint but thinking back I think it might all be this neat. Huh, guess these folk really like good roads. Which I can’t blame them for honestly. Reinhold has a number of godawful roads that make transporting fragile goods in bulk a nightmare. Before I learned most of the vast bevy of spells I now know, it took a lot of packing material to safely get a cart of preserved reagents from a supplier in the city to my house out in the boonies.
Anyway, Maker’s Street is coming up and yeah, roads look just as nice. A dark grey stone with flecks of some kind of crystal. Man that must be pretty at dawn or dusk. Yeah, this street is mostly commercial it looks like, signs hanging from just about every doorway, many buildings with display windows, stalls lining the sides of the streets, more than one blacksmith working at an outdoor forge to take advantage of ambient cooling. Man I’m starting to get really excited here! Surely it couldn’t hurt to watch a few at work, right?
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
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I’ve been walking on Maker’s Street for a little bit and turn around to speak to Rose about where she wants to go first, only to be met with blank air. Damnit, where did she disappear to? I’m really not used to her being able to leave me so easily. Let’s retrace our steps. An alchemist’s shop called Cures by the Bottle, a carpenter’s named Foagle Family Furnishings, a blacksmith’s named The Rending Blade aaand there she is, watching the smith at work in his forge…and yelling at him.
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“OH COME ON! WHAT’RE YOU DOING!?!? You haven’t even hammered out all the impurities and you’re going to- AGGHHAAHGHGH NONONONONO! STOP STOP FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS STOP!
“He can’t hear me! He can’t hear me and he’s ruining it! What does he think he’s going to get out of quenching it this early? I’ll tell you what he’ll get, “A BROKE ASS SHITTY BLADE THAT’LL BREAK AS SOON AS YOU TRY TO SHARPEN IT YOU FUCKING MORONIC MEATHEAD!”
1. I can’t watch this. I’m going to be sick. I haven’t eaten in 8 years and I’m going to throw up. I don’t even have a digestive tract and “I’M GOING TO THROW UP BECAUSE YOU’RE SO BAD AT YOUR JOB!”
Oh thank god, Val is here. “Val! Val! Please for the love of all that’s holy you have to stop him. That’s perfectly good D-rank metal that he’s ruining! It’s a crime! A crime against the gods, against nature, and most importantly, a crime against me. He doesn’t even deserve a trial, just death! Stop him quickly!”
Val whispers to me under his breath. “Rose, calm down. I’m not murdering a man for being incompetent.”
“YOU SHOULD GODSDAMNIT!”
“If you feel this strongly about it, why don’t I go talk to the master smith.”
“Yes, thank you. Oh my god he needs to be fired I swear.”
“Isn’t he still an apprentice? Isn’t his job to make mistakes so he can learn?”
“If he’s going to FUCK UP THAT BADLY that he needs to go back to kindergarten.”
“I don’t know what that is but I’m pretty sure it was insulting.”
“It was.”
“Ok, let’s just go speak to the master.”
Val walked into the store after giving the apprentice a respectful nod that the man did not deserve. At the counter was a young felinoid woman with some very muscular arms that seemed terribly bored to be there. I can sympathize. If I wanted to be making something but was told to sit at a counter and wait for people to buy things I’d be bored too. She seems a bit less bored looking at Val, but who wouldn’t be?
“Hello. Is the master smith in today?”
“Why? Got a custom order? I can take the details down now and let you know when the master has time to hear out the rest of it.”
“No, I’d actually, um, like to lodge a, um, complaint? Against the apprentice outside?”
“Votive? What’d he do this time? He didn’t make a pass at you did he? I swear, I’ll kick his ass into next year this time. It’s bad enough he hits on any adult that moves but now he’s turning into a pedophile? I’m gonna kill him for this one!” She said as she jumped up from her stool and began to storm around the counter. Val grabbed onto her arm, protesting.
“Nonono! Please, he did nothing untowards to me!”
“Oh, are you sure? No flirty words, no winks, god he has a terrible wink, no weird gestures you maybe didn’t understand?”
“No, no, he didn’t even speak to me!”
“Alright, then what’s the problem?”
“HE’S MURDERING MATERIAL IN FRONT OF THE GODS AND EVERYONE! He has to be stopped!” I shouted in Val’s ear.
“He. Um. He’s wasting a lot of material, and I thought the master would want to know.”
“IT’S NOT JUST A WASTE IT’S A CRIME! I’M TELLING YOU HE NEEDS TO BE LOCKED UP!”
“Weeeellll, apprentices are expected to make mistakes. As long as he realizes that he’s making the mistake it should be fine.”
“REALIZE IT!??! HE MADE 3 SWORDS THE SAME. WRONG. WAY!”
“It, um, didn’t seem like he realized the mistakes he was making.”
“Uhuh. And you did squirt? No offense, but you don’t look like a smith, not with your noodle arms.”
“I, uh, am something of an apprentice myself.”
“Oh yeah? You got proof?”
“I forged this sword myself.”
“Mind if I see?”
“Go ahead.”
Val passes her Boar’s Thorn while I’m still seething. She takes it out of the sheath and sights down the blade, taps it with a finger nail in a number of places, tests the edge, and overall gives it a twice over.
“This isn’t bad work. The blade itself is somewhat plain but the finishing is what makes it worthwhile. So I’d say your master’s good but you’re nothing special.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because apprentices don’t finish blades, we just make and sharpen blanks.”
“I’m the one who finished the blade.”
“Horseshit”
“No, I truly did.”
“Well then, if you did, you’re better at a number of other disciplines than smithing. Cause, again, the blade itself is nothing special.”
“I’d bet the Thorn here against any one of Mr. Votive’s swords.”
“Alright. I don’t have much of a horse in this race, aside from protecting the master’s reputation. So I’ll go ask the master how best to settle this matter, which is quickly turning into a matter of honor between my master and yours. I’ll have you know, and we’ll see what’s what.”
“Sounds fair. When you tell your master, please apologize to him on my behalf for the inconvenience.”
“I’m sure he’ll accept. Now, wait here and don’t go anywhere. If you do I’ll let the whole town know that you’re only good for slinging shit.”
“Understood, I’ll wait patiently.”
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About 10 minutes passed while I waited for the master smith to arrive. Meanwhile, Rose was fuming beside me, muttering things along the lines of “I can’t believe they’re letting him keep working while we’re waiting. How much damage will he do in the meantime.”
“Rose, you have got to calm down! It’s not even your materials, why are you so upset about this?”
“Because! Because! Because! Sigh. It’s because I didn’t think that he was an apprentice, I just saw a smith working and thought he needed to know better. I’m also disappointed that this might be what the craft has devolved to in these last 8 years.”
“Devolved to?”
“Shoddy work. Shoddy, slapdash, ‘Looks good in a scabbard and not much else’ work that’ll get newbie adventurers killed. That’s why I’m upset.”
“I see. Is it a personal reason or just worry for people in general?”
“My first sword I bought from a blacksmith that told me it was his finest piece. I went out all happy to have a masterwork sword, ignoring the system ranking on it, and fought a wolf. Guess what? One chomp from the wolf and my ‘masterpiece’ sword was shards. I died because I trusted that sword and it failed me.”
“Well I can see that that would be a sore spot for you.”
“Hello. Are you the young man that thinks their work better than my apprentices?”
A short figure, about 4’3’’ walked up to me, his muscles making him nearly as wide as he was tall. He had no hair on his head but a magnificent beard, plaited in an intricate pattern and ornamented with numerous pieces of metal in decorative shapes.
“Hello sir. I am the person, not man, that thinks that your apprentice is wasting material on swords that would get someone killed if used in the field.”
“I see! Person eh? Not a man? Sorry that, my eyes must not be what they used to be. So, let’s see your piece. Nat, call Votive in for me.”
“Yes sir.”
I hand him the Thorn, as loathe as I am to let someone else handle it twice in one day, it seems necessary for this test. The master does much the same as Nat did, but also a few other things, such as licking the flat of the blade, smelling it, giving it a few test swings in different forms, and over all using all of his senses to examine the blade. Votive, the draconid apprentice came back in aside Nat looking nervous and holding the 3 sword blanks he had made. The master seemed satisfied with his inspection of the Thorn and handed it back to me and barked at Votive.
“Go sharpen one of those. The best one you made.”
“What best one? They’re all shit.” Rose spat venomously. Man I’m a little unsettled seeing her this angry at someone other than the Duke.
Votive placed the other two on the counter and hurried to the grindstone in the corner and took to sharpening the blank.
“Well, your blade’s nothing to sneeze at, but I think my Nat has the right of it when it comes to the metal’s quality. However, we’ll see how it stacks up to Votive’s. I can tell by the way you hold yourself that you’re quite used to using that piece there, but knowing how to use a poor blade well and using a good blade poorly are two separate things. A master fighter can survive for quite a while with a blade they know to be poor quality while a beginner can trust a good blade to cover for some of their mistakes.”
“I’m worried about when a beginner is handed a poor blade that cannot cover for them.”
“Aye, as all smiths should be. Granted, no smith wants to make poor quality work, but the most dangerous smith is one confident in their own incompetence to the point of dooming some poor soul. That’s why I’m agreeing to this challenge of yours, by the way. Seems a good lesson for Votive if you’re right, and a good one for you if you’re wrong. Either way, the youth learn and I get a show. Gwahahahh!”
A guffawing laugh broke from the man at that. I think I like this gruff master smith. He’s honest and knowledgeable. Maybe not so much as Rose is, but he seems a bit easier going than she is when it comes to crafting. She can get really intense and while that’s not a bad thing, it can make learning from her hard.
“Um, sir, if I may ask, are you a dwarf?”
“Aye I am. What gave me away?”
“The beard, mostly.”
“Hah! Most say my height! Glad to see someone who knows something about something. Any guess as to my clan?”
“I’m sorry, I’m lacking that knowledge.”
“Nah, no worry. Most outside of the clans don’t know much about ‘em. These ornaments here are the signs of the Dolomite Clan. Name’s Girraghen Bouldergrasp, at your service.”
“Pleased to meet you, Master Girraghen. My name’s Valkyrie.”
“And this here’s Nat. Say your greetings Nat.”
“Heya squirt, names Natalie Greenspire but just call me Nat.”
“Nice to meet you Nat.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“Despite her awful personality she’s my best apprentice. Gotta put her on counter duty sometimes to keep her from overworking herself.”
“Whatever sir, I’m telling you you need to let me work more. I make the only stuff you sell worth a damn besides your customs.”
“Um. Master, I’ve finished sharpening.”
“Alright then. Nat, fetch me a bunch of iron ingots will you?”