Chapter 18:

Senex and his companion led Oliver and Reinhard to Latro Camp, the distance was as Oliver had anticipated, only about a mile away from where they had been stopped. Aurelain, the girls, and the army stayed behind. Oliver instructed them to stay put and to not attract too much attention, so they hid inside the ruined buildings.

As Senex and Oliver got closer and closer to the camp, the ruined city scape began to disappear. Now Oliver walked in a grassy field, leaving the city behind. As they got closer to the location of Latro camp, Oliver began to see a large wall, this wall wasn’t made of scraps or dirt, but of stone. The wall, though not very high, encompassed a large interior, Oliver couldn’t even see when the walls curved in.

“Welcome to Latro Camp… soon to be Latro City.” Announced Senex as they were about to be let in through the wooden gate. “I beg you to make yourselves comfortable, I will inform the Lord of your arrival, he’s been hoping to learn more about where we have appeared.” He said with a smile. “I’ll leave Adam to you,” He faced his companion, “Show them around, will ya?”

“Of course, it’d be my pleasure.”

Senex left in a hurry headed to a large building in the distance. The town was full of buildings, and many people, young and old, as if a medieval town was just placed here. The Lord must be very intelligent, to start building a city so quickly. Earth magic must have been the reason they were able to build all this stuff.

“Right this way gentlemen.” Said Adam. He led us through the bustling streets of this city. We traveled up and down allies, saw children playing in the street, and vendors selling strange and unfamiliar fruits to the people. Oliver paused by one of these vendors. These fruits sure are peculiar, he thought.

“Adam, where did these fruits come from?” Asked Oliver, “I’ve never seen them before.”

“Oh, that's a flangic fruit, it's really sweet. Have you never tasted one?” Replied Adam, looking at Oliver as if he was some sort of recluse.

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t.” Oliver said, he looked back at the flangic fruit. “How much does it cost?” He asked the seller.

The seller replied, “Why does that fruit cost one silver coin?” He was an older gentleman, his hair was white, and he wore a brown robe. “But I’ll sell you ten fruits for three silver!”

“I just want one.” Oliver pulled a pouch from his belt, and took out a gold coin. “Can you give me some change?” Asked Oliver, holding out the gold coin like it was nothing.

The old man froze, and he stuttered as he spoke. “I– Let me see if I ha– have enough?!” He replied, Adam had also frozen in his tracks. Apparently a single gold coin was worth a lot, but it would probably go down in value once these new people realize that you can find lots of gold coins in dungeons. But Oliver wasn’t about to tell this fruit seller that. Who knows, this old man might already be swindling Oliver.

The seller took out a pouch and dumped the contents onto his stall, he counted out twenty silver coins, roughly the size of a Quarter. “Here you are sir.” The old man gave Oliver the single flangic fruit and nineteen silver coins. Oliver took the coins and put the silver in his pouch, making sure to count them over again. They then left the stall.

Oliver examined the fruit, it resembled an apple, but was bright blue. Oliver felt something coming from this flangic fruit, mana. Before Oliver was about to try the fruit, Reinhard stopped him, “My Lord, are you certain this is safe?!” Reinhard asked.

“What could be wrong with it, and it’s not like you can try it for me?” Replied Oliver, Adam and Reinhard both looked at Oliver. Reinhard was somewhat worried, but Oliver's logic was quite soundproof, to the undead, at least. Adam, on the other hand, looked at Oliver as if he was about to laugh. As if he knew something I didn’t, at the time. Oliver took a bite out of the blue fruit. And as he swallowed the fruit, he felt something inside him move.

Oliver quickly vomited the fruit up. “Eww, what the hell is this?” He looked at Adam angrily, “A sweet fruit, you said. Did you lie to me?” Asked Oliver angrily. Reinhard looked at Adam, his calm purple eyes switched to red.

“HOW DARE YOU POISON MY LORD!” Yelled Reinhard, “I’LL BLOW YOU TO DUST!”

Before Reinhard could charge a dark orb, Oliver stopped him, “Reinhard, enough.” Oliver said, standing up, wiping his face. He looked over to Adam, and gave him a face.

Adam laughed loudly, “I’m terribly sorry, but that was just so funny. Everybody knows that a flangic fruit needs to be boiled before eating, it rids the fruit of its poisonous mana. When we appeared here, there was panic, but after some strife, Lord Fur calmed everyone down, he then organized us, and we began to rebuild. We grew that fruit because it grows easily, and it wards off monsters. Even the monsters hate eating it!” He laughed again.

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“Continue with the tour Adam.” Said Oliver.

A still laughing Adam led us to a fountain closer inside the city. The fountain wasn’t anything special, and was more of a fancy well. Around the fountain were a lot of shops, and some trees. These buildings were brand new, and seemed like they either opened the day before, or this morning.

Before Adam continued the tour, Oliver stopped him. “I’d like to do some shopping, my supplies are running a little low. Could you wait here for a little bit?”

“Sure, be my guest. And if you’re buying food, buy the bread from Madras Bakery, it lasts a while.” Replied Adam, he then took a seat on a nearby wooden bench that had just been installed.

As Oliver walked around the plaza, there wasn’t much variation in merchandise. Half the shops sold food, while the other half sold things like fire wood, or wooden tools. There was one shop that stood out, the outside was very different, unlike the other buildings, this one sold clothes and armor. It was something that Oliver didn’t expect to see in a city populated by people who were stranded in an unfamiliar place. But hey, money finds a way.

Oliver walked into the shop, inside he was greeted by a dwarf. He had a long beard, with pointy ears, and he wore a leather craftsman apron. Inside were many ornate tools. This dwarf must have had high level artifacts on him when he was teleported. How lucky.

“Welcome to Breve’s Smithery, we just opened and we sell a variety of clothes and armor, ranging from regular day wear, to combat equipment, how can I help you?” Announced the Dwarf, we must have been his first customers, because he was quite happy. “If you don’t have money, I’d be happy to trade with you.” He said as he waved his hand to his merchandise.

“I have plenty of money to buy from you. I’m a mage and I was hoping you had a cloak or something for me.” Oliver said as he summoned a Fireball in his hands.

“Of course, I have some robes and cloaks for fire mage, is that your friend behind you, the one in the black armor.” Asked the Dwarf.

Oliver didn’t even turn back before answering. “Yes, he is my summon.”

“Oh, I thought I had another customer.” The Dwarf said sadly. Breve led his new customer inside the store. The building was quite large, and even had a second floor. They headed to the back of the workshop, and there stood a coat rack, holding different colored robes and cloaks. Some were green, others were orange, it seemed that each element had a cloak. Orange or red for fire, blue for water/ice, brown for earth, and green for wind. But there were no purple or black cloaks.

“These are my specially made magic robes, each element has its own color.” Said Breve.

Oliver was speechless, “How did you make all these?” He asked.

Breves responded and told Oliver that he traded some armor for dead monsters from the guards, Breves then butchered the monsters, and crafted robes out of them. The monsters had different colored hides, the creatures with fire attributes had orange hides, wind attributes had green hide, and so on. Breves had spent the past day and night making these cloaks, they were much harder to make than metal armor.

“I see, may I ask how you made all these armor sets? It looks like its top quality.” Asked Oliver.

“It's mostly thanks to these magic tools.” He pointed to his apron pockets stuffed with beautiful tools. “I’m a master craftsman, so naturally I had no trouble making armor.” Replied Breves.

“Yes, but where did the metal for the armor come from?” Asked Oliver.

“Look, before I continue answering your questions, are you going to buy anything?”

“Yes, I actually want to order a custom made robe, I have the means to pay for the best.” Oliver replied, holding out his pouch of gold coins, making them clash together in the bag.

“Indeed my dear customer.” Breves slight frown instantly changed to a face filling smile. “I got the metal from those ruins, it seems they were nearly entirely made from metal, so some friends of mine picked up some debris and we smelled that metal down. It was quite an interesting metal. It was so strong that it didn’t melt, until we requested fire mages services, in exchange for some tools. Then we poured the smelted metal into a mold, and that's how you make armor.” Breves held his hands out to his armor sets, a prideful smile on his face.

“Ah yes, melting Steel down, it's much stronger than iron, and lighter as well. But it takes a lot of heat to melt it down into a molten liquid.”

“Steel, you say? That's a great name!” He shouted. “Whoever created this was a genius. Please tell me, how do you make it?”

“You combine coal and iron, and a crap ton of heat, I mean, lots of heat. Melting it down doesn't take as much heat, but making steel requires double the heat.” Replied Oliver.

“I see…” Breves went into a deep contemplation. “Oh, right, did you want to order something?” Asked Breves.

“Yes, I want you to make me the best possible robe for combat and daily use. It needs to be lite, but incredibly strong. And the color shoulding attract much, so make it black. Is that possible?" Replied Oliver.

“Ha, I’m sorry sir, but that's unlikely, I don’t have the resources to make that happen. I’d need some high level monsters, and it would probably cost a good bit of gold to even make it. I’d need a better smithery too. I’m sorry.” Breves said with disappointment.

“That's fine, I can wait.” Oliver took out his small chest from his belt, and set it on the floor to grow, he then opened the chest and pulled out three large gold bars. Breves face lit up. Oliver and Breves made a deal, Oliver would pay upfront, three gold bars, and Breves would use that gold to upgrade his smithery and make the robes. In the future, Breves would owe Oliver a huge favor.

Oliver and Reinhard left the shop, and headed to the bakery Adam had told them about. There they bought the long lasting bread, and made their way back to Adam, now asleep on his bench.