The weaponmaker’s shop set at the top of a hill. His forge overlooked a ravine that was deep and dark. The light from the forge shone in the distance. Boyd smiled. It reminded him of his Uncle’s old shop. A tiny little building at the edge of the property. Sometimes he was making his own bullets, sometimes he was smoking meat, sometimes he was just out drinking beer away from the world. Boyd loved that little building though. Whatever was going on, it was fun.
He knocked on the door of the shop and then ducked under the small archway, “Hey there dude, the Mayor told me you sell guns and shit.”
A small squat man glared up from the counter and then went back to reading his magazine. Boyd guessed he was a Dwarf. He filled most of the few qualities that Boyd knew about Dwarves. He was short and stocky, he had a very thick beard, and he seemed to like smithing.
“Hey man, you speak English, or uhh… you know, uhh… whatever it is I am speaking or something?”
The man didn’t glare up this time, but said in a flat gruff voice, “I sell guns, but I don’t sell to riffraff. Get out.”
This shit would never fly in Tulsa he thought to himself. Boyd reached into his pocket and pulled out the first gold marker worth 50,000 gold coins. “Look dude, folks said you were cranky, but I got some serious money here, like 200 grand. I need to buy something good to save my ass. If you’re going to be a dick about it, I ain’t gonna fuck with you. So which is it, sell me a God damn gun or I take all this money down the street.”
The man looked up at the gold coin. “Why didn’t you say so, I have all sorts of wares to sell a fine individual like you. What are we in the market for?” The man jumped off his stool and began meandering over to the cases of weapon and armour. Boyd was a little perturbed with the rapid change in demeanor but he needed the equipment.
“Yea, I guess I need like guns and armour and shit. Here’s the long and short of it: I just did a switch to Bushwhacker cause I used to be a Monk then a Swordsoul and then I couldn’t do that anymore, so then this asshole I know named Fleon…” Boyd continued on for a few minutes rambling about this and that until the Dwarf raised his voice to interrupt.
"Got in over your head huh? Well let’s see if we can dig you out. Let me show you something appropriate.”
Most of the items Boyd was shown cost in excess of 100,000 gold and that was more than he wanted to pay for a single item. None of them were in Very-Large Bore either which made less sense for him to purchase. Eventually he settled on the minimum that he had been advised to purchase. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough for now.
Everloading 99 cal Lever Action Rifle [Enchanted]: A Standard Lever Action Rifle. Magazine size (1). Very Large Bore. Unlimited reload speed, but requires lever action. Causes Flinch. Deals one damage to you whenever you fire this item. Highly effective against soft tissue. Minimal armour penetration.
Flinch reduces accuracy by 50% on all shots.
You are immune to Flinch due to Very-Large Bore weapons specialization.
The man said, “Keep in mind, Very-Large Bore weapons fire relatively slower bullets. You are more likely to knock an armoured target on its ass than put the bullet inside it. Those 99 cal rounds hurt like heckfire too. You should practice with the lever and figure out how to quickly aim and reload.”
Boyd stared down the sights, “This thing have a scope or anything?”
“What’s a scope?”
“You know, like a thing you mount on top to see further away.”
“A scrying lens? I don’t understand why would you need a scrying lens with that eye implant you got. Looks Venian. How am I going to attach a scope that can beat that?” The man started muttering in a language that wasn’t translated for Boyd as he shook his head.
Boyd was used to shooting through his other eye, but he quickly realized upon switching shoulders that he’d never need a scope again. The Venian implant was a far better scoping system than anything he’d ever seen before. It had targeting systems in place already. It made the most advanced scope on earth look like iron sights. He realized he’d be able to make shots he’d never been able to make in the past.
“Sweet, how much?”
“13,000 gold. That Everloading enchant ain’t cheap.”
“I was told it should be around 1,000 gold”
“You were told wrong, you want it or not?” The man raised his eye at Boyd with a smile on his face.
Still having no idea if that was a fair price, Boyd came to the conclusion he had little choice, “Deal. I need something for close up too. You got anything like a 1911?”
“I have no idea what that is. Are you sure you know anything about this stuff?”
“Uhh, I need like a small gun that I can shoot things up close with. Handgun.” Boyd made a “pew pew” noise and turned his fingers into a gun.
“Handgun. Why didn’t you say so?” The man thought for a minute, walked to a separate container and produced what Boyd identified as a Civil War style revolver. The barrel was probably 8 inches long, with a massive hammer on the top. The only difference between what he was using to seeing and this weapon was that it was all metal, and had a shine to it that was almost green.
Everloading Hand-Wizter of Static Poison [Extraordinary]: This 85 cal revolver fires Static Poison bullets. Similar to other expanding rounds, bullets fired from this gun expand upon hitting soft substances. Static Poison rounds take this a step further by poisoning the target persistently until they are removed. Highly effective against soft tissue. Minimal armour penetration. This weapon causes Flinch.
Flinch reduces accuracy by 50% on all shots.
You are immune to Flinch due to Very-Large Bore weapons specialization.
“How’s this work?” Boyd asked. He fiddled with the pistol practicing aiming with it. It was extremely heavy, almost cumbersome to hold. He spun the chamber to open it and found it was filled with five extremely large bullets that looked like they were primed with a small mountain of gunpowder.
The merchant look at him quizzically and sputtered, “You point it and shoot. Are you dense or what?”
Boyd scowled, “Nah, the poison thing.”
"Point it and shoot, if you hit something it will poison them. The more poison you pump in the more damage it does. It’s damn near impossible to get rid of Static Poison without a Cleric. So if something is close to dying and you got a bunch of poison in it you can just run away and wait it out.”
Boyd thought about it and realized that had some good potential. He’d gone deer hunting with Walker a number of times. Walker had these arrowtips that caused a ton of bleeding in the deer. If you couldn’t kill it with a single arrow, it would usually bleed out. Then you just had to track it down.
“I’ll take it. How much?”
“30,000.”
Boyd whistled. “God damn, that seems like a lot.”
“It’s Extraordinary Quality weapon and you are down here fighting for your life as a gunslinger with no guns. Sounds cheap to me.”
Boyd was sure he was getting screwed on the deal but he chocked over the 30K he owed from the change from the last purchase.
In addition to the weapons, Boyd bought some plain leather armour that he strapped on over his jeans and Def Leppard t shirt. It fit nicely over his current attire, but left him feeling like a mixture of Davy Crockett and Crocodile Dundee. It wasn’t enchanted as it turned out enchanted leather armour was far more expensive than the equivalent weapons. He kept his Harpyskin Rochide Boots on as they were immensely better than anything else he could purchase. The merchant charged him almost 5,000 gold for the whole set which he didn’t mind until he later noticed the exact same thing in the store for about half of that price. He was feeling more and more like he probably was getting robbed, but he had the money and he had the need.
Boyd turned to leave. He’d spent about as much as he felt safe spending hoping to keep the rest for other purposes. He checked the weapon one last time, and even test fired each one with the dwarf’s permission. Sure enough, each fired and automatically reloaded. The rifle kicked like nothing he had ever felt and the revolver damn near took his good eye out when it jumped in his hand, but he got control of both of them fairly quickly after knowing what to expect. He got a pistol belt for his pistol and a sling to keep his rifle on his back. It made carrying them both fairly simple, but he was feeling more and more like he was starring in a Clint Eastwood movie. The merchant charged him again, although not exorbitantly.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
As he was leaving, the man yelled at him, “Hey I got one other thing you might like if you have the money. A good pistol is hard to beat, but if it falls out of your hand you’re gonna have a hard time doing much of anything. I got a good weapon for you. Sometime rare and strong. It ain’t cheap though. Want to see?”
Boyd shrugged, “Why not, can’t hurt to look.”
The merchant scampered to the back and came out with a leather scabbard with a long curved knife in it.
“One of my favorite treasures. A truly unique item. No one even knows I have this. It’s my prized possession. Usually it wouldn’t even be for sale.” He pulled the knife from its leather scabbard and presented it to Boyd.
SYSTEM: Souvenir Billhook from Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure: Magic Mushrooms and Full Swap Orgy Edition [Replica Unique]: Martene Ginnardy was considered one of the greatest Blacksmiths in all of Aztreoneme. In fact, Marty’s works routinely sold for small fortunes throughout the Universe based not only on their amazingly artistic appeal, but based on the fact they were typically amongst the sharpest, strongest, and most durable weapons in the known universe. It didn’t matter what Marty tried his hand at, he could craft almost any battlefield implement to perfection, often innovating generational advances in metallurgy, smithing and more.
So, it was a little bit of a surprise when Marty gave it all up to start a Fishing Boat Tour company. While he originally just did fishing tours across Aztreoneme, this quickly became Fishing (and Drugs) Tours based on both Marty’s preference and the clientele he attracted. It wasn’t a huge leap from there until it became themed parties on Marty’s boat that had less and less to do with Fishing and more and more to do with Partying. The end result was Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure. Eventually he sold out his shares and Corporate interests took over until it became a shell of its former self. What was once a way for an old Blacksmith to live out his retirement years doing what he loved (drugs, sex, fishing, sleeping) eventually became a joke. It was now a Brand. Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure: Ganja and Greenery! Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure: Snort it or Shoot it! It even had version for the kids, Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure: Dinosaur Fun Ride!
One of the major perks of going on a Party Marty Cruise was the Souvenir Billhook. Marty realized pretty early on that citizens didn’t like drudging through the thick jungle of Aztreoneme. He began giving all his clients a large hooked knife used for cutting through jungle brush that was commonly used by the locals of Aztreoneme, and thus was born the Party Marty Billhook, AKA a Party Marty. While several thousand exist, the early souvenir billhooks were handcrafted by Marty himself, and commonly sell for a small fortune. Not only are they extremely sharp and weighted to lop damn near anything in two, but the early ones were Marty Ginnardy originals that were hand crafted to perfection. That fell off over time as the popularity of his program eventually led to a reduction in quality. This one was made in the later years when he had stopped putting in the same amount of effort. While it’s not his best work, it is a real Party Marty and a hell of a lot better than most anything else you’ll find.
Billhooks aren’t actually made for combat. They are made for chopping the heavy plants of Aztreoneme into multiple pieces so you can walk past them. As such, billhooks are classified as both [Tools] and [Knives] similar to a machete. What they lack in any sort of defensive capacity, they make up for in the ability to lop things in two. Souvenir Billhooks from Party Marty Ginnardy’s Jungle Cruise Adventure have the same capacity to remove limbs and heads as they do branches of large plants.
Attributes:
Extremely durable. Extremely sharp. Heavy (Strength required: 20).
[Unique] Attacks made with this weapon have a very high chance to Dismember.
[Unique] Deals massive additional physical damage when swung downwards.
“How much?”
“250,000.”
Boyd grabbed it and swung it around. Lifting it up was hard, but whenever he swung it down, it felt like it would cut through solid steel. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to use it due to the Broken Swordsoul Debuff, but quickly realized that because it was classified as a [Tool] and a [Knife] and not a [Sword]. The more he swung it, the more he fell in love with it. He could afford the 250,000 but it would leave him with basically nothing left.
“What about 150,000?” Boyd asked.
“I can do 225, but that’s it,” the man said.
The merchant was eyeing him aggressively. He looked around the store. Almost everything in the store was priced at values half or less of what he had paid. Sometimes less. He was starting to feel like he might be getting ripped off. “What’s it really worth?” Boyd asked.
“It’s worth what I say it is, so if you can’t pay that much then don’t tell me you have money.” The merchant ripped the item out of his hands. “If you aren’t going to buy it there is a handling fee though. It’s 100 gold. I have to wash the item after you touch it. It lowers the value. Takes time to clean it too. That’ll be 100 gold.”
“Man, I ain’t paying you 100 gold to touch it. Maybe if you’d said first but I ain’t doing it now. That’s ridiculous.”
“If you want, I can call the Guards and we can discuss it with them? They’ll pull your guts out and then I keep all your gold. It’s fine by me.” The merchan’ts face was quite grim and Boyd decided it was past time to leave. He reluctantly pulled out 100 gold and handed it him. He walked out of the store, highly frustrated with being extorted.
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Boyd was in a store down the street, but he kept thinking about the billhook. He had the 225,000 gold left over but it would leave him with almost nothing. He definitely needed some sort of knife though, the merchant was right about that. Boyd had gone to multiple other stores, but he hadn’t found anything he wanted. Most of the available items were fairly simple versions of a plain dagger or looked more like a Chef’s knife. None of them had the weight or feel of the billhook. He was currently handling a simple magical dagger that he found to be the next best thing. It was much smaller, but he felt like he could at least use it.
“Best I can do is 500 gold on that one.”
“Really? That’s pretty cheap.” Boyd tossed 500 gold on the counter.
The new merchant looked at him oddly, “You think that’s cheap? Seriously? I would’ve settled for 200.”
“Yea, I paid like 13,000 for this thing,” Boyd motioned towards his rifle.
The merchant in front of him laughed, “Did you go to Thosel’s or something? The guy down the street? Thosel really can see them coming. He’s a mean racist son of a bitch who overcharges anyone who isn’t also Dwarf by at least 50 fold. Even my own people don’t like dealing with him. Ha!” The Dwarf walked over to another counter and pulled out a gun and set it front of Boyd. “This is pretty close to what you have. I might argue it is modestly better quality, but I don’t think it could be classified as worse. It’s pretty close to the same. I’m charging 2,000.”
Boyd’s jaw dropped, “Seriously?”
The Dwarf laughed, “Yes, absolutely. Did you buy that revolver from him too?”
“Yea, I paid 30.”
“Thousand? Gold? Are you serious? If you had asked I could’ve got you the same thing for probably 6-8, maybe 11 at worst.”
“God damn, are you serious? I’ll just go get my money back from this Thosel guy and go through you then.” Boyd started to head out the door. “I’ll be back.”
“You aren’t gonna get anything back. Take this as a lesson, either learn to haggle or learn to shop. The Thosels out there are a dime a dozen. This place ain’t for the weak of heart or the weak of mind. Take the loss and learn your lesson. Now you want the knife or not?” Boyd had started walking out without his intended purchase. The merchant tossed it to him.
Boyd flipped it around his hands a couple times. He liked it. He didn’t love it. He wanted the billhook. He didn’t know what to do. It was just another moment of indecision. He was lost at sea in a place with no directions and it was making him angrier and angrier. He hadn’t asked for this and he’d been lied to at almost every turn.
“What if I go tell the Guards?” Boyd asked.
“If I had to guess, they ignore you. I’d say ignoring you would be best your best result. Ignoring you is if it goes well. If it goes badly, Thosel tells them you stole it and they kill you on the spot. The Guards aren’t here for you all. They are here for us. Dwaves. I wouldn’t risk it. Take the loss. They don’t really care. You are best off just not bothering them. And if you need anything else, I recommend coming back here.”
Boyd stared hard at the Dwarf.
He thought back to what Salia had said.
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“Hey, I changed my mind on that billhook. Can you bring it out?”
“200 gold to look,” Thosel was starting at some sort of trade magazine written in a language that didn’t translate for Boyd. He didn’t bother looking up.
“You said 100 gold last time.”
“This time it’s 200. You didn’t buy last time. You are just wasting my time. I want my recompense.”
Boyd groaned, “Fine, just go get it.”
Thosel looked up from his magazine and grumpily wandered into the back of the store while Boyd vaulted over the counter. There was a small commotion in the back before Thosel came charging out of the door to the back of his shop holding the leather scabbard, “I had some troubles locating it, so I decided it is 250 to look this…”
Boyd jammed the knife in Thosel’s neck as hard as he could and then jerked it out. The blood sprayed across the shop. It wasn’t going to be possible to clean this up, he just had to make sure no one knew it was him. He covered Thosel’s mouth with his hands to shut him up as the Dwarf let out a small gurgle before slumping over dead. Boyd didn’t get any Experience. He assumed merchants must not be worth any. They’d all be dead otherwise.
It was his first time using Targeted Ambush but it was entirely intuitive. As soon as he activated it, an outline of the Dwarf appeared in his vision. He could trace his movements as needed, even through walls. Even better, it offered weak points on the Dwarf’s body. A glowing red spot appeared on both side of the Dwarf’s neck indicating that he had a strong chance of a fatality if he could stick him in the right spot. When he had pulled the buried knife out of Thosel’s neck he saw his life bar plummet entirely and instantly. The outline went away.
He hadn’t experienced it before but a little timer appeared in his vision indicating Targeted Ambush couldn’t be used for another five minutes. That wasn’t anticipated, but it meant that he would have to use it more for taking out a single target rather than a group of targets.
This was an over-reaction, an over-correction to a small problem because he’d spent too much time doing the opposite, under-correcting for big problems. You weren’t supposed to kill someone for ripping you off. All the same, was Thosel even a someone? Was he a figment of Zenith’s imagination, built as a part of a huge fucked up game that he never wanted to play to begin with? It didn’t really matter at this point. He tried wanting to go home, but wanting didn’t get him anywhere. It was time to try something else. He grabbed Thosel and carried his corpse out to the back of the shop. He threw it as far as he could into the ravine below. He wasn’t sure how criminal cases were solved here, but he ultimately decided they might not even exist based on what he had seen. He next chucked the Dwarf’s body down the other side of the ravine. It landed with a splash. All the better. If there was water down there it was that much less likely someone would notice. He wasn’t worried about it. He was leaving town tonight. He needed Experience. He needed to practice.
He grabbed his new weapon off the front desk. He left the money and everything else. He put the Party Marty in a leather sling that fit quite nicely and strapped it across his back opposite his rifle and walked out the door.
He was ready.