(Back at Jade's Booth)

Jade: "Fruit Boy! You got any dexterity to speak of? Or you just eye candy?"

Koji: "My DEX is 4."

Jade looks at me with a shocked look: "Really? I was totally kidding about the eye candy thing but with a score that low you *are* useless..."

Jade: "Well, just stand at the front of the booth then. If someone comes and needs an order, ask them for the receipt and bring it to me. I'll be working in the back."

She goes back to a large worktable, where she has unrolled the metalcloth.

Fifteen minutes pass. The market is much quieter than it was the day I sold fruit.

Jade: "Actually, what's your MP like?"

Koji: "I've got plenty of MP. And my INT is pretty high."

Jade: "Great! Then you can prep the glasswax. I don't think you can mess that one up, and it takes forever to heat anyway. Grab the wax - it's a clear wax inside a metal pot, inside the white bag inside the chest."

She tosses me a key and I open the chest near the entry to her booth. It's full of cloth bags of all shapes and sizes. On the right side is a white bag; I pull out the bag, then close and re-lock the chest. The bag has a small round handle-less pot full of a solid clear wax.

Jade is making marks on a thin sheet of paper and watching me out of the corner of her eye.

Jade: "I usually just go for it and start working with the fabric. But this material is special... and that hood guy gives me the shivers. I'm using a template to make sure I get it right, and this way I can plan out the size of my scraps."

Koji: "Scraps?"

Jade: "Yeah. You saw hood-guy gave us more than I asked for, right? And this stuff... well... let's just say that 50 copper isn't anywhere near the market price. I'm not gonna waste this stuff. Next you'll grab the heat pot. It's under the table - just put the pot on top and press your hand to the center for a few seconds. It's a magic tool that will use some of your energy to heat up."

I pull out what I'm guessing is the heat pot. It's a small device - maybe only 15cm tall - with an indentation that perfectly matches the bottom of the glasswax pot. I place the pot inside the indentation and put my hand over the gem in the center. Within moments I start to feel heat radiating out from the pot. This is actually pretty cool.

I close my eyes and try to feel the magic flowing out of my hand into the heat pot.

Yeah... I can't feel anything but the heat.

I open my eyes and the wax is beginning to melt around the edges.

Koji: "Should it be melting like this?"

Jade: "Wha?!?"

She runs over to the pot and puts her hand near it, then looks at me.

Jade: "You weren't kidding, Fruit Boy! Glasswax is one of the last steps... and it's already melting! Dang you're useful!"

She looks back at her piece of paper covered in figures and lines.

Jade: "So, turns out Hood-guy is actually a really good salesman. It may look like this fabric is just a random size, but he gave me just enough extra to play with, but not enough to make anything really big."

She steps back from the table, puts her hands on her hips, and looks at the paper in front of her.

Jade: "You know what? I'm gonna use all of this, right now, because otherwise I'll be tempted to go buy it again. Your brother is gonna get more than just a backpack. I hope you're ready to do some heavy lifting, cuz you and I have a date for the rest of the night, Fruit Boy!"

I take a moment start to send Gabe an in-game message, but stop. An apology right now would be meaningless. Better to wait until at least the backpack is finished. Maybe I'll see him tomorrow. I just hope it doesn't cost more money than I have.

---

Almost an hour later, as the sun is getting low in the sky, Jade has the entire sheet of paper filled with diagrams. Even thin strips around rounded edges and corners are marked. She steps back from the sheet, wipes some sweat from her brow, and grins.

Jade: "Easy part is done! Now comes the fun!"

She takes the roll of metalcloth and lays it on the table. She takes the paper pattern and grabs a handful of pins. Then she looks at the cloth, back at the pins in her hand, and looks at the pin she pulled out of the rolled fabric earlier. After only a moment she has a look of disbelief on her face.

Jade: "This pin is..."

Jade (mumbling to herself): "Actually... in this case glue would probably be better. I don't think pins will work anyway. I don't want stuff moving, and the glue should be easy to pull off... right?"

She grabs a container of glue and, grimacing slightly, spreads a thin coating on the metalcloth. Then she carefully lines up the paper above it and presses down, smoothing it perfectly into place.

Yeah, there is 0% chance I could do that. Even with a DEX of 100 I couldn't do that.

Jade grabs what looks like a pointed stylus with a small handle. She holds the stylus in her hand, and the tip begins to glow. She presses the tip against the paper and painstakingly, slowly, traces the outline of a small rectangle, then puts down the stylus and picks up the metalcloth and shakes it slightly.

The cloth is the same.

Jade: "I was afraid of this..."

Koji: "What's wrong?"

Jade: "This cloth is hard to work with. I already know that shears won't work. Anyway, this tool is a magic cutter - it has a catalyst that uses magic energy to separate things like a knife, but it's even cleaner than a knife. I can usually do one pass... but at this rate I don't think I'm gonna be able to even cut through this..."

Her eyes drift to the heat pot.

Jade: "Fruit Boy, how much MP and INT do you have?"

Koji: "...a lot?"

Jade: "Well... let's try something?"

She grabs my hand and puts the stylus in it.

Jade: "The crystal is near the bottom. Just cover it with one of your fingers."

I wrap my hand around the stylus. Within moments, the tip glows in an almost blinding blue-white light.

Jade yells.

Jade: "Woahhhhhhhhh! Ok, ok. Ok. Ok. Ok. Ummmmmmmmmmm ok. Yeah, ok. We might have a chance here! But you have a DEX of 4 Fruit Boy? You'll destroy that pattern like a kid with paint..."

She looks at my hand, then at the pattern, then at her hand. She smiles and looks at me again.

Jade: "Get ready, Fruit Boy."

---

Two hours later, Jade and I are in position. I hold the stylus as lightly as possible with my left hand, and she closes her right hand around mine and moves us together. We've traced practice patterns, and after doing ten in a row with no flaws, she's ready.

We hover over the paper, metalcloth and pattern waiting underneath the brilliant blue-white light. She closes her eyes in quick meditation, and then we slowly trace the outline of the same small rectangle. As the stylus touches the metalcloth, I heard a "zzzzzzzt" sound.

We finish tracing the rectangle and Jade lifts up the metalcloth eagerly. The rectangle stays behind.

Jade: "YEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!"

She holds both hands high in the air and pumps them. The people still at the market are staring. But I think they get it now.

She turns to me.

Jade: "I am lucky today, Fruit Boy. Without you here, there's no way I could work with this cloth."

Koji: "Is it really that hard to cut?"

Jade: "Are you kidding? This is... this is metalcloth... and even though I've worked with lots of metals I've never had trouble cutting them before. Yeah. But anyway, this is awesome! Let's keep going!"

Cutting the rest of the pattern is a painstaking endeavor. My arm cramps up a few times, and each time we take a break and Jade begins putting pieces together.

I had wondered how she was going to make use of super thin pieces. She pulls out another magic tool - one that looks a lot like the cutter, but instead of a pointed end, it has a sharp edge at the end like a scraper - and holds it in her grip. Just like the cutting stylus, the entire end glows. On the table, she lines up two pieces of metalcloth. She scrapes the edge along the fabric, and behind it, there is only one piece. No seams, no cuts, just a single piece of fabric.

Jade: "This only works with metal. It uses the same magic as the cutting tool, just in reverse - it binds the joints together perfectly. With this, we won't have to overlap anything, which should make it easier to use the fabric for something awesome..."

Koji: "About what you said earlier... I'm sorry for prying into your life like that. It makes sense why you don't work with enchantments... and I'm sorry you lost your family."

Jade: "It's not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal, but it was a long time ago. When I first started crafting, everyone told me I would never succeed without enchantments. They told me no one would buy my stuff."

Jade: "They were right. No one would buy my stuff. Nothing was waterproof. Nothing was fireproof. Nothing had any type of magic protection. So I learned about magic catalysts - gems that use the power of the wearer to sustain magical effects - and began using those instead."

Jade: "Slowly, people began appreciating my work. I could never afford to cut corners, because I couldn't cover things up with an enchantment. The other vendors in the marketplace were my first real customers. And when customers saw them come to me, I slowly started getting business of my own."

Jade: "I still have a lot of people who aren't willing to buy stuff from me. Some enchantments - like the waterproofing one, for example - are dirt cheap, which means that doing it the hard way - by applying an extremely thin coating of glasswax - is always going to cost more. But the people who do buy stuff are buying something they can count on. The enchantment will never break, which means it'll never go haywire on them, or do something they don't expect..."

My hand is feeling better, so I pick up the stylus again and reach my hand towards hers. Together, we keep cutting out pieces.

It's going to be a long night.

---

(At Talos's Booth)

Only one customer today. Well, dozens came by his booth but none were willing to actually buy any of the many types of metalcloth. His mission, to make trusted connections with the craftsmen in Fountain City, has been difficult thus far. It's hard for a man whose greed is endless to make inroads in what is traditionally a low-cost marketplace. Most craftsmen call him far worse names than "hood-guy" when they learn the price he charges. And why shouldn't they? With a total monopoly on the market, he can charge anything he wants. But today, after an extremely lucrative experience in the mountains with some of his fellows, he felt impressed to give the next person who came to his "humble booth" a taste of generosity.

It was by chance that he pulled the cloth. He wanted to make it into a game, so he closed his eyes before selecting it.

But the girl almost ruined everything when she offered 50 copper. It was already bad enough that he had to show the dagger - any other cloth and he could have used the "magic shears" he had prepared in advance. She should know the cloth is worth far more than that. The cut was quick, but it's far too risky. He checks. The dagger is still there.

Was she trying to play dumb? No... any good craftsman can tell good metal from sight and feel, and Jade *is* famous. Not for her actual work, but for her connections, and her willingness to take any job, and ability to work with anything. She knew. It must have to do with the boy. Fruit Boy or whatever nonsense she called him. Either way, the token payment she made was 5x. Enough more than what he asked to keep herself and the boy from feeling a sense of debt... but so far below market value that he almost ended up demanding full price out of habit. Hagglers always pay more when they are working with Talos. There are no discounts, no sales, and no deals. Anytime someone asks for something like that, the price increases. And somehow the girl and the boy left without debt or paying full price.

Either one - a debt to Talos or the full price of mithril metalcloth - would have been very, very expensive.