Darkness welcomed my awakening. Fucking 30 hour days. At least Barry kept the windows open throughout the night. He also did me a solid by making breakfast, porridge, a tomato and a few pickles. My order of business was exercise in the form of lifting makeshift weights, stretching and jogging around our outskirts. The run also helped me to get a decent overview of the village. Bothering Bob for his pipe followed my morning exercise. Sunrise was well under way by now. My mana bar was close to max, which prompted me to drop off an extra magic sword at home. They didn’t seem to suffer from any distance between us.
Coincidentally Barry made good on his debt, leaving me 200 crystal richer. He needed to cash in his growth stones with alchemy before I’d see the rest. We negotiated that my share of the ‘profits’ would be paid out in tobacco and alcohol, an agreeable arrangement for both of us.
My newfound disposable capital spawned a whole laundry list that needed sorting, including literal laundry. Starting a mending cartel had been on the top, but the government offered the service at cost. Disgusting. Cantrips were all over the place and hard to talk about, but word spread regardless and the improvised signs helped. Most minor magic wasn’t really suitable as a service though, and browsing through them landed on the backburner. Right now however, it was time to pick some new skills.
My current set of stat-links resulted in a full supply chain, more or less, and there were abundant opportunities to practice them. I had two open spots, magical power and speed, with the latter being of lesser importance. Thus, my path brought me to the government building again, filled with the village stockpiles, including skill-sheets. A clerk greeted me upon arrival.
“Hey there, you the new guy?” she said.
“Yeah, name’s Gabriel. Pleasure to meet you.” She was about my age, with shoulder length wavy blond hair and heterochromia – one blue, one green. It made her eyes captivating to look at, the rest of her features were pretty too.
“I’m Jen,” she rose from her desk and walked over without breaking eye contact, then shook my hand, “what brings you to my dark and lonely cubicle?” Ah, a sense of humor.
“Just here to liven your day, figured I’d put my old skills of misery management to use and you seemed like you were in need of ‘em.”
“Yeah, office life isn’t what it used to be. At least we had coffee.”
“Look at the bright side, leadership is just as bitchy. Small comforts, eh?”
She chuckled. “Yeah, ditch the good and keep the bad. Anyway, what can I do you for?”
“I reckon a wink and a smile would probably get the job done, but jokes aside, I’m looking to pad out my skills.”
We traded small talk on our way to the pictogram repository and she and gave me a recommendation, enchanting specifically, while searching for the sheet.
“Not sure about that, I already have a post-processing skill. Feels like I should expand my horizons a bit.”
“Might be a decent start to actually know what you’re talking about first then, don’t you think?”
“Oh? Enlighten me with your boundless knowledge, o wise lady of the treasury.”
“You really love kissing ass, don’t you? Lucky for you, it’s working. Here have a look.”
Oh, hell yes. My skepticism made way for excitement and Jen was almost as happy to have proven me wrong as I was from her having done so. Enchanting had real potential. Unlike my other skills, this one came with options, both in applicable tools and materials. The example presented three methods, the top one showed a knife, a small chunk of wood and a picture of a goddamn horse. Could’ve used this a long time ago. The other two demonstrated combinations of a chisel plus stone and a file with metal, all of them led to the equine result. Carving was fun, but also easy to do on the fly, while the material requirements were low.
According to Jen, who also dabbled in enchanting together with government employed alchemy, adding detail improved the final product. Once done to satisfaction, all that remained was to infuse some energy from your personal supply. How much it took depended on how long the product had been worked, one per hour, and then you threw the fucking thing. Doing so manifested it, made out of your chosen material, significantly enlarged and with a duration equal to the cost. There was an unmentioned control element as well, the enchantments accepted mental commands and followed them to the best of their ability. Jen accepted my profuse thanks in properly condescending manner. Nice lady.
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The treasury also doubled as a trading house by providing an alternative for running all over the place searching for people with the right things. It also functioned as a vehicle to regulate the local economy, characterized by shortages of pretty much everything but especially magic metal. The situation wasn’t quite as drastic with the return of the expedition camps, but I bagged a sweet deal on two ingots and was now well supplied with magical wood and greenish leather – those were relatively common.
We said our goodbye’s when another villager imposed on her time. My revised list sent me a stone’s throw away to the windy open-air village foundry, just a bunch of lined up free use portable forges, muddy plank flooring and a long rack of extra tools. Some people were actually producing while others remade the same thing over and over for the sake of stats. My hesitation attracted attention and a dude with a mullet haircut and obviously bleached teeth approached me with a big smile.
“Oi. You lost or just aimless?” He spoke loudly, with a heavy British accent.
The constant smashing, clanging and sizzling forced me to shout as well. “Hey, name’s Gabriel, mostly unsure where to begin. I’m new here and all, never did any smithing before either.”
“Jared,” he ushered me to an empty spot to set up my own mini-smithy, “I’ll show you the basics, you looking to make something or reinforce what you have?”
Once again, new world nuances escaped me. Repeatedly reforging something actually made it stronger and the System did a lot of the heavy lifting while compensated for any unintentional inaccuracies. Jared explained the gist of it. Just a hammer and tongs weren’t quite enough, needed to supplement them with home-made separate tools for sharpening, shaping, and so forth. An example rack had everything and it took most of the afternoon to make them. My magic cooling liquid ran out halfway but a tenner in crystal fixed the issue, only needed to touch the round trough and think about it. By then some shouts announced mealtime, free porridge. Our equivalent of food stamps didn’t appeal, which led to a repeat of breakfast at Barry’s and more smoking with round Bob, who’d been invited.
While most didn’t return, the industrious kept going after dinner, me included. It took until early evening but I succeeded in making the blade of a planned hunting and carving knife. Barry had a friend named Jeb who was passionate about this kind of stuff and had turned his residence into a workshop.
A heavy drawl answered my knock, even worse than Barry’s. “C’mon in.”
“Hey there, B. told me you could help me out with something.” He embodied the epitome of a hillbilly.
“O’really? He ain’t the type to send folks over unless it’s business. Whad’da’ya got fer me?”
I couldn’t resist. “Lots but let’s start small. If you don’t mind satisfying my curiousity, what did you do before all this?”
He ignored my faux-pas. “Nothin’ much. Mostly spent my time connoisseur’in. Well? Git on with it.” Fine appreciation for what, crystal meth? His teeth were a mess.
“Ah, I had a few nice paintings, never much of a wine guy though but knew a fair bit about whiskey. Where’d your taste land? Here you go.” I walked over and held out my amateur project.
“Ya wudn’t get it, lemme see that.” He grabbed it, turning it over to one side, then the other at eye-height. “Is alright, 20c should’do it.” After taking my money, he dropped it on his table and sat down, back at work. “Ya can have it back t’morrow.”
“Alright man, have a great one. Looking forward to it.”
“Aye, same to ya.” He didn’t spare me a glance, Barry had assured me Jeb was the best but my doubts lingered regardless.
Night replaced dusk and the village buzz died down, signaling me to pick up my rune pen from Mel’s office. Couldn’t sleep and spent the dark hours practicing my System-ordained desk job. The pen had a glow at the tip, suited for scratching at the plate despite a lack of external light and the work absorbed my full attention. Then dawn approached. I didn’t bother returning the pen, but did borrow Bob’s pipe after finishing my exercise routine, then revisited Jeb after giving Barry my piece of magic bamboo, for distillation purposes.
He’d already finished my knife and it was astonishingly well put together. Everything fit perfectly, the handle smoothly wrapped in leather. He even modified my basic design by adding a serrated back for the cool-factor. My doubts had been replaced with satisfaction, this result earned Jeb a shopping spree.
I played with my new toy, switching grips over and over. “This is really nice. Thanks man.”
He was clearly a little smug about it but tried not to show it. “Wudn’t do it if I wasn’t good. Anythin’ else?”
No shit. “Got a pretty big list of what I need. You up for it?”
“Dont’cha worry. I hafta help ‘morrow but all’a’y’all jump to the front afta’that,” he said. The accent annoyed the crap out of me but his excellent craftsmanship and friends-first policy made it tolerable.
“Great, here’s what I had in mind…” My order ate up all my magic materials aside from two ingots, eleven bonemetal plates reserved for a special sword, and 300 crystal for both labor and any missing requirements. The damage felt light, relatively speaking. Especially after adding a rush job, which Jeb agreed to and expected to finish by evening – turning my looted bone into a pipe, wasn’t quite ivory but close enough. The rest would have to wait.
He immediately began reorganizing his desk. “Ain’t that the berries. Let’cha know when I’m done with the big order.”
“All right man, see you soon then.”
I spent the rest of the day smithing, the evening drawing and the night sleeping. The next two days were a disappointing prospect, since they would be dedicated towards community service, most likely building homes and whatever amenities had been determined a priority. Preferably I’d find some way to contribute that benefitted me personally as well.