It was Sunday morning, Nicholas was sitting in his living room chowing down his breakfast. He had  woken up early as per usual but today he had gone for a jog since he felt a little stiff after his gaming session. Today's plan was to make most of the day in game since tomorrow was when his studies would start at the university so once he was done with his dinner he got ready to immerse himself in Land of Irith once again.

Aleyn left the inn and head towards north west side of the town where the residential area was located. The wealthier people who could buy a decent house or build one were few in this particular town which meant that the residential area had some shabbier houses mixed in, but there didn't seem to be any bad air between the nobles and the poorer people so they could live in harmony in their little district.

She found the old lady's house without too much trouble. The house was located in the middle of the residential area and it looked out of place among the two ruling sides of poor and rich. The house was old and made of wooden planks while its neighbors were either made of logs or a combination of logs and bricks. It was probably the first structure build in that part of the town and back in its day it must have been considered a work of art, but time and weather had taken its toll on it now and it had some batches of wood which looked out of place.

Aleyn knocked on the door, you could hear someone moving inside and in a moment the door opened. What greeted her was an old dwarf lady with long red hair which had a few grey stripes here and there. Her face was wrinkly but it still held a certain charm of an older woman, she wore a dark shirt and what a dwarf could consider long skirt.

"Yes?" she asked which woke Aleyn up.

"Oh sorry.. yes are you the one who put up the request over wolf hides ?"

"That is me." she said and crossed her arms.

"I've got a few hides for you then." Aleyn shook her backpack as indication.

"Come on in then, lets see what you brought." the lady moved inside and motioned for her to follow.

The old dwarf woman brought her to a living room with a fireplace already burning, the room looked well kept and had a few pictures lying on the shelves.

"Lets see them then."

Aleyn took out 7 folded hides and put them on the floor. The old lady started  unfolding them around the floor and going through their conditions.

"These actually have quite good cuts. People rarely bring this good hides here." she said while raising her eyebrows. She turned her head towards Aleyn and asked.

"Did you skin these yourself?"

"Mostly. My archery teacher skinned two of them."

She folded the hides back on the floor and sat on her chair.

"So about the payment, I'm gonna make you the same offer I made with all the others." she paused to take a sip of her tea that she had from before.

"You can either take the money for hides which is.. seven hides for 3 silver so 21 silver."

"And my other option?" Aleyn asked.

She took another sip of her tea.

"Or I can make something out of these hides for you and I don't pay you anything. That might sound bad but I have confidence in my skills. What ever I make for you, you won't find something equal for 21 Silver in this town."

Both choices seemed tempting. More money was always useful, but even though she had  Terrys cloak she could still use something extra to keep her warm during her travels. Money was simple to get, you just had to work but buying good quality clothes would either be hard or expensive.

Aleyn went through the possibilities for a moment and ended up with what she thought was the best solution.

"Could you make me something that mainly helps with the cold outside?"

The elderly dwarf looked her clothes over.

"You're mainly wearing leather, but that cloak should should keep the wind and cold at bay, you're expecting to travel to the mountains or something?

"It's a possibility. Once I go up in ranks there might be some job or request which needs me to travel there."

The old lady looked at her for a moment.

"I could go on about how the weather is not the biggest issue when traveling to the mountains, but it doesn't concern me really."

She put her tea cup down.

"So for snowy weather.. I think chest gear and pants would help you the most and I think your seven hides should be enough for those. If I start making them today they should be ready by tomorrows evening."

"Lets go with that then. How long can you keep them if I don't come and pick them up tomorrow?"

"You don't need to worry about that unless my whole house gets filled with requests, which is very unlikely. Just retrieve them when you can."

The elderly dwarf took some measurements from Aleyn and went to finish her tea while Aleyn left the residential area.

Today's plan was to ease up on the killing and instead do something that required more physical strength. Healthy body means a healthy mind.

She went back to the copper job board and went through them again searching for something fitting and she came across a request she had seen already a few days ago.

"Town smithy looking for ore of any rarity, payment decided on quality and quantity. Do not remove."

"Mining should be hard physical work right?" she thought.

She still had no real idea how mining worked or how to go about it, but there was no better way of going about it then asking and doing was there? She decided to go to the blacksmith and ask.

As she reached the smithy she was reminded of her first day inside the game. She remembered how she had almost been eaten by a wolf and frozen due to the weather, but she put it behind her as she stepped inside the blacksmith.

The building was probably the largest one in the town and the only one made of mostly bricks. Definitely the only one with multiple chimneys.

As she entered the smithy she was assaulted by a gust of heat which was so intense she had to take her cloak off. She looked around the house until she heard a voice from her left.

"Business?"

A bald dwarf with a long brown braided beard. He was striking an iron rod on an anvil without looking at her. He wore a very worn shirt with no sleeves that left his arms vulnerable to the dangers of the forge and a leather pants which had burn marks all over.

"I came here to ask a few questions regarding the request for ore."

He took a side glance at her and continued hammering the iron.

"Cybil sorts out all of the orders and questions. Go to the end of the house and there's a room on the left."

She thanked the dwarf who just ignored her.

Aleyn found the room at the back of the house and knocked on the door. She was prompted to come in almost immediately.

A human man was sitting at the opposite side of the small room. He had brown hair which was long enough to cover his forehead and ears, he also had a short well groomed and trimmed beard.

There was a stack of papers which he was shifting through and writing on, but as he took a moment to look at Aleyn he put the stack aside.

"Hello my name is Cybil and this is my workshop. What business might you have?"

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Aleyn took a few steps toward him before answering.

"I'm Aleyn and I noticed you have a request for ore which I intend to take part in. However I have no previous experience on mining so I thought I could come here and ask about it."

Cybil took a moment to look her over

"Another girl who thinks physical labor is nothing amazing huh..." He thought to himself as it wasn't the first time.

"A little lady wants to mine? You sure you don't have better options for money? I'm sure there's something much more suited for you."

He obviously didn't think much of her from face value, what he couldn't know though was that Aleyn in the real world had done more than enough physical work to know how tedious it can be.

"You don't need to worry about that all I need is some tips and methods and I'll be on my way."

Cybil sighed and picked up a pickaxe that was lying next to the wall.

"What a cocky girl." Cybil thought.

"Well if you're gonna be that persistent about it fine by me, not my issue."

He put the pickaxe on the table.

"Mining is simple. You need a pickaxe and a cluster of minerals. You whack the cluster with the pickaxe until you can collect it."

"Now go on, have a fit and run away little girl." he thought as he tried to get rid of what he thought was an ignorant girl.

Aleyn rolled her eyes.

"Gee that's very enlightening, but seriously speaking is there an educated way of hitting something with a pickaxe?"

Cybil thinking that his half-assed explanation would drive her out was slightly amazed "Thicker skin than expected." but then decided to humor her.

"Proper way of using a pickaxe in 3 easy steps." He stood up and moved away from the table.

"Step one. Hold the pickaxe like this and always with two hands."

He put his left hand at the bottom end of the pickaxe and firmly took a grip of it while his right hand stayed at the other end close to the metal part.

"Step two. Swing from over your shoulder." he positioned his pickaxe over his right shoulder

"Step three. When your swinging down let your right hand slide down until it hits your left hand."

He swung the pickaxe over his shoulder slowly and demonstrated how his right hand slid down.

"This reduces strain on your whole body."

Aleyn nodded as she finally got something useful out of this meeting and asked.

"So where should I go and mine then?"

Cybil sighed and went back to his seat.

"There's a quarry to the west, they have plenty of ore to mine and only take 30% of anything you mine as payment for using it. Your other option is to find veins in the nature."

She thought for a moment but then decided to leave

"I won't keep you away from your work any longer then. Thank you for your guidance."

"I'll probably never see her again."Cybil thought as he gave a half-assed wave to her.

Aleyn was walking towards the forest to North East after deciding not to go to the quarry. She had gone to the general store and bought a suitable pickaxe for herself and gotten equipment in case of a mishap but enough room to hold ore. Now the only thing left to do was find something to mine.

She walked for a good while, dodging wolf packs which weren't interested in her and weren't aggressive. It was definitely a good idea to try and mine early in the morning since Terry's theory seemed to be true.

After some walking she came to a rock formation which had boulders and spikes all around it amongst the snow, the formation itself was very tall reaching up to 15meters. She circled around it looking for anything out of place and found something at the foot of the formation. A dark glitter which looked out of place on the grey'ish rock.

"Iron." she thought to herself.

The cluster of Iron wasn't that big on the surface but it could go further into its rock host and since it was the first mineral she had found she decided to start with it.

She took a grip of the pickaxe and started whacking at the rocks and iron. It turned out that she had to put in a lot of strength to chip the rocks and metal. She hit the rock for a good few minutes until her first ore nugget was extractable. It wasn't much bigger than her both fists combined but it was a start. She continued until the cluster had only small fragments and dust left.

Once finished she was already sweating and sore, but her backpack was filled up to a forth. The weight of the ore was surprisingly large but manage able.

"This certainly goes for gym training." she thought as she put her backpack on and moved on.

She traveled around the forest mining smaller batches she found until her backpack was half filled. The weight that the ore put on her was now moderate, a close estimate would be about 35 kg.

"Time to head back and take a break."

The journey back wasn't much different to her journey there other than she now had more weight on her back.

As she entered the town her breathing was noticeably heavier and she was still sweating. As she came to the smithy she took a fist full of snow to wash her face with and wiped it off with a rag from her backpack.

Knocking on Cybil's door once more she heard the same prompt to come in.

As Cybil saw her he gave an annoyed look.

"You need more help or something?"

Aleyn ignored his comment and sat down while she flipped her backpack on the edge of the table.

"No I came to bring my first batch."

She pushed the backpack towards Cybil and laid back to relax a bit while stretching her arms back.

Cybil took the bag and felt the weight which surprised him. Being a blacksmith and a miner he could estimate how much something weighted with his arms quite easily.

He didn't say a word as he took a leather scroll from behind him and rolled it over his table and work. He also picked up a scale from the floor and put it on top of the leather and poured the contents of the backpack slowly on the scale. Once all of the ore was on the scale he shifted through it to see that it was in fact all iron.

"Roughly  32.6 kg of Iron ore." he said while staring at the scale.

"Sigh, I estimated 35. Scales don't lie though." Aleyn said while wiping her fore head

Cybil looked at her for few seconds then declared professionally.

"I can give you 75silver for this."

Aleyn was shocked that had to be the biggest amount she had gotten so far out of any request."

"Deal."

As she was about to leave the room Cybil interrupted her.

"You said it was the first batch. You intend to bring more?"

She turned around to look at Cybil

"Yeh, I was planning on a few trips. I probably need to take a break though in between so maybe 5 batches or so today."

Cybil's eyebrows rose and he stayed silent.

"Anything else?" Aleyn asked

"No no, you can go."

Aleyn left the smithy and went to the inn for her break. She ate and rested for a while and then decided to go for another mining trip.