The two of us, Gunther and I, sat in front of a Smiths shop as the poor hound confusingly mauled one of his ready-made shovel heads while a second person carved the haft to my specifications. They would be excellent if they worked out how I figured they should.
“You know… I don’t think I really thought this out.” I told the pointy-eared, pointy-mouthed, carnivorous [Merchant] while we stood under the eaves of the converted smithy.
“Like… Like you don’t know what you’ve ordered?” Gunther asked.
“No. No, I know it will work, but I wasn’t planning to get it the day I ordered it. I wasn’t ready to just… Sit around?” I told her.
“Most of the time,” she said in a tone too wise for her, “you're waiting on other people to do stuff, assuming you're not all-knowing and all-capable, anyway.”
“I’m well aware.” I told her, “Hurry up and wait is not new to me… I just wasn’t expecting to find someone who could do it right out of the gate... or one with shovels lying around.”
“Well, to be fair, normally, you would be going through a guild [Toolsmith]. You would have been right for then, but for a caravan, craft goods are better than raw resources if you can keep your stock up. Most of Hector's job is keeping our stock up. We can even sell lower than local guild smiths dependent on the markets…” she said, a slight glint in her eye.
I couldn’t tell if it was a tear or malice, but either was probably the same in meaning.
After all, there was no way Gunther would cry tears of joy at anything but others' misfortune.
“You know, I would think most caravans would have a good relationship with the guild. The whole point of guilds is to control for quality, at least for the consumer,” I told her.
“Perhaps at their founding they were, but the guild isn’t a city thing; it’s an institution,” she argued. “The Guild of Artisans and Craftsmen is a monolith that strangles all competition and drives up prices. The only places you can find cheap goods are small villages and caravans like mine where we can get [Merchants] like Hector.”
I scrutinized the pocket-sized creature. My gut told me [Merchants] were the great evil. They had a lot of money and a lot less morals when it came to spending. They could buy out necessities and sell them back at twice the price, stuff like that.
They were also the kind of people to overstate stuff.
“If the guild is so bad, why is it even around? They can’t be pumping up prices too much. I mean, if it's an institution, it can be gotten rid of. I have the feeling it's not as bad as you’re making it out to be.” I told her, squinting at the woman.
“It's totally as bad as I make it out to be. In cities, the guild has a stranglehold on every artisan and craftsman. If you want to make goods, you need to be in the right sub-guild. Nails and rivets? You better be part of the Metal Fasteners guild. Do you want to sell a knife? Get stripped of your goods and forced to pay reparations. If you don’t sign on, you technically get off, but the guild knows you are not in the guild. Have fun being unable to buy bread, clothes, nails or tools for less than ten times the price while every smith in the city is paid to lower their goods below your prices, so you go broke. It's insidious… And they make so much money.” She said.
There it was.
“Sounds terrible, but it also sounds like you're more annoyed at the guild's success compared to being a [Merchant]. It sounds like a lot of bad stuff, and that makes me dislike the guild. Call it paranoia, but I think you’re trying to get me on your side.” I told her.
If it was as bad as she put it, it would be all downsides. No one would want to be part of the guild, the weight of it, the weight of the institutions own self-hatred, would see its doom.
“Of course, I’m peeved at the success of the Guild,” she said, “I want to return to the good old days when [Merchants] got more money. I also don’t think a different group of people, one backed by the state, are any better at it.”
“Well, thanks for the explanation, even if the only thing I can take from it is the reason why the [Dressmaker] that made my dresses couldn’t do any other work,” I told her. “Besides, do they maintain the quality of goods?”
That had seemed to stifle her greed. “They do, but-” she started, only for me to cut her off.
“Then that’s all well and good,” I told her, “But I’m not exactly the person to gripe with. I have no stake. As much as I can listen to you rant, it’s not exactly a topic I can contribute toward.”
She listened and, with a huff, mumbled, “I suppose you’re right. They just ruffle me.”
“I can tell,” I told her, “They’re talking up more space in your disproportionately large head than my magic questions.”
“Ehh?” she asked, confused. “What kind of magical question in the hell has you in a tizzy?”
I sighed.
“I don’t think I can even wrap up my understanding in a way that makes sense,” I told her, not wanting to get into it, even though I kind of wanted to.
She snorted, “Half of understanding is the ability to explain things. If you can’t explain yourself, you don’t know what you’re doing. Try me.”
“Well…” I started immediately, “One of the questions is, what is a spell? It should be rather simple, but I know some stuff a normal person shouldn’t. The fact is, a spell and a skill are basically identical… Not even; basically, I can’t find a distinguishing thing except a difference in medium. I can’t figure out if the difference is what makes a spell, a spell, or if there is no difference, and spells and skills are the same thing. Worse, they display separately on [Status], and you can get spells when you level, and that spell was supposedly handed down to mages by a god…”
It came out as an unending flow of disgorged thoughts draining from the bunghole of my head, each spraying forth from my mouth in an unaltered, unmanaged, unstructured ramble. I bumbled out my issue and then the complications, not keeping them separate but one after another in an unorganized, spontaneous list. After about a minute of listing off random spontaneous details that probably didn’t cause an issue, I stopped, finally empty enough to think about Gunther, who, no doubt, didn’t care enough to deal with me at the moment.
It took a few moments of quiet before Gunther spoke up and broke the silence, but she did, and she did it briskly.
“Wow. Tell me how you really feel,” she said, which got a groan out of me.
“Sorry, I need to figure it out, or I should have already, I guess. Its just eating at me.” I told her.
“Well, I suppose different sorts have different hold-ups. Sounds like you needed it, even if it sounds to me like a bunch of samey nonsense with more nonsensible hangups, but hey, what do I know? I’m not a mage.” She said.
“Maybe I did,” I sighed, “Though what do you mean samey?”
“Samey, you know, not a big difference? It seems to me you’re looking too closely at the details and not at the bigger picture. Details are details. A nail is generally metal, but if you sell some kind of magical wooden nail, you would still sell it as a nail. The material doesn’t matter if you use it the same way if you get me.”
“There are wooden nails; they’re called dowels, and you don’t use them the same way,” I told her, though that wasn’t what I was thinking about.
I wasn’t thinking about it because I was thinking about what she had said. Her words were unrelated. Nothing magical about them. She hadn’t used a skill or worked some kind of [Merchant] magic, and yet, her words stirred something in my head. A hole. An empty spot where many lines connected, but none came to a point.
And as I thought on it, the hole snapped shut.
“Dowels aren’t the same at all. You need to… Hey! Hey!!” she said, quickly speaking up and snapping her fingers. I snapped back to reality as the little wood elf stood on tip-toe.
“Sorry,” I said, spacy and thoughtful.
“Did you pass out? Gods woman, whats going on in your head?” She asked me.
“Not a lot?” I answered with a question.
“That’s not an answer, but fair enough, you airhead,” she muttered.
We stopped talking for a moment, the patter of rain and the tink-tink thunk of the hammer coming through the wall. The simple noise and light of the forge giving us all the light we could have asked for, and yet there was not enough to illuminate the shadow I cast over the tiny Gunther as I shuffled up to her.
I stared down quietly, not speaking a single word.
Gunther, for her part, stared up, unconcerned and unflappable as I loomed.
“You can be a real bitch, you know that?” I told her.
“Yeah, but that’s why I’m the best. Besides, you’re not without your faults, you great big lumbering ape of a [Saint],” Gunther said smugly, staring me down like she was twice her height.
I sighed.
“You have no shame, I’m glad I don’t need to worry about you weighing in on my love life… Not like you seem to have any experience. Lets go inside.” I told her.
“I would love to, but I doupt you need help, what with your excellent manners. Now, Lady’s first.” She said, gesturing to the door.
“I would love to; go on then, reach the handle. I'm no lady.” I taunted.
“I was talking about myself. Do keep up,” she said, giving me a grin with far too much tooth.
We could keep going back and forth on this. Gunther was taunting me, trying to drag me down to her level, and beat me with experience.
Knowing this, with all the wisdom of my people, I decided that I was primed to fight in the mud, and took the bait. After all, it was low-hanging fruit; why would it exist if not to be plucked?
Because no matter who or what you were, Gunther could get under your skin like a tick, move in, and never leave like a squatter.
“Oh? I thought you were a young lad? Or perhaps a doll. It's hard to tell, with that childish body and pilgrim vomit get up of yours. If you keep fence sitting like that, you’re going to end up with splinters up your ass.”
“I am forever young,” she said in a sing-song, “My body is pure as fresh snow, and my magnificent wood elven ass wants those splinters like you wouldn’t believe. They’re a comfort during those long, rough nights where I know I’m the only one of us that can get some wood in them.”
“Ew.” I told her, “You need to get laid, which is even grosser now that I think about it, because someone would need to figure out what's in your pants.”
“I understand my hidden inventory leaves you uncomfortable from its sheer girth, you are young and naïve, such is the way of things,” She told me.
“I’m not interested in your wares beyond what it can give me,” I told her with an emphatic gag.
“Okay whore,” she said passively.
It was so casual it took twenty moments of parsing it for my head to actually translate it. Even then, it wasn't a word I knew.
I was fairly sure I got it though.
Kind of hard to mess that up. Dirty words were surprisingly straight forward.
We stared at one another. I had buried myself and I knew that, but I still wanted to dig in my heels. The only thing stopping me was Gunther knew where to hit to make me gag, she knew I saw her as less mature than she was and was willing to bet that the idea of her and sex together was gross. Using her looks was part of her mo, and she was good enough to use that, while also leading me on.
Stolen novel; please report.
“You know, you got me there. I can see why your single,” I told her conceding the spar with one last smear and opening the door.
“Ouch, tell me how you really feel,” she said before walking in.
I followed in after her to the dusty interior.
The shop was lit by both the glow of a forge, and by candles in a lamp, curved reflective surfaces bathing the interior in their full light. Clustered around were all the tools of the trade you could ask for, hanging on hooks next to the forge, the remainder of the space taken up by a few benches, seating, and boxed goods that would normally be on display, but were sheltered from the elements to save them the rust.
Off to the side, in a separate room, I could hear the rattle of the [Carver], doorway blocked not by wood, which would impede passage, but by a heavy curtain to stop sparks.
Looking at the warm metal, we watched the [Blacksmith] as he put the finishing touches on the blade.
It had been a shovel, one with pointed ovular scoop. Nothing fancy, but then again, I wasn’t a fancy girl.
The problem, I had found, was that they were curved. Unlike a primitive shovel, a metal one often came with a curved blade to help it support the weight of lifting, and to hold more, like a bowl, instead of a plate. That also meant that it was very hard to get it to cut, the metal blade worked against the flesh, the edge wanted to curve, which limited its power.
This one, was flat.
Which was a very silly sounding thing, it was, after all, minimally different, but it was better at doing exactly what it needed to. Give it a sharpen and it became a kind of flat half-halberd with decent thrusting and slashing.
And bonus, I could still use it as a shovel, though it was less useful for that purpose.
The second part was the haft, which was less like a shovel haft and more like a long stave, slightly wider, over one and a half times longer in reach, and, notably, made of a wood that was good for carving staves. Notably, according to [Crude Foci Carver], simple staves were often made from specific woods, with better staves being made from magical trees. This staff was made of lilac wood from lilac woods the homeland of the Goblins. It wasn’t magical, not properly, but it was minorly magical, which should help it when I carved the staff.
As for what I would carve… I hadn’t ironed that out, but I had a few ideas that my skill fed me, though, it would be minor at best.
Still a minor magical tool? That would be huge. I could put a weak spell in it, or make it improve casting one, or a few other things, but I would need to sit down and dive into the skill while I was carving. I wouldn’t know what I could end up with unless I had the blank staff in front of me, in my hands, and the time to puzzle over it.
We waited in the room as the [Blacksmith], his fur hiving off a heat haze as his mana flooded out of him as he quickly heated up the head before the head bloomed from it, the air letting out a noise like boiling water.
It was skill work for sure; I could tell by the warble of the smith's mana as it radiated out of him in curling energy, pulling heat from the metal, quenching it.
Looking up from the shovel, but not at us, he shouted, “John!”
“Yes, boss?” A catkin asked, slipping out from behind the curtain.
“Are you done cleaning up the haft?” He asked him.
“Sure thing, boss, I’ll bring it out for you.” He said before turning to us and saying, “Hello [Caravan Master] Gunther. The shovel should be ready in a few minutes.”
“Thank you for your quick work, young John Swiftfur. Go on then; scamper; don’t let me hold you up.” She told him half-heartedly.
He nodded and dipped back into the room, leaving us alone with the smith.
The smith looked up at us, panting at the heat of the forge, mouth forced into a doggy grin and spoke, “So, you wanted this flat and the haft and head held together without any kind of fixing? No nails or a pin or the like?” he asked.
“Without anything permanent, I need to be able to take the haft out later. I understand that could be a bit of an issue, but I need to be able to detach it. Sorry for the strange hang-up on the order,” I told him.
He shrugged, “I wouldn’t say it's an issue, even if it is a queer ask. Lucky me, I can do it. You’ll need to take a pin to pull them apart, but a solid wood pin ought to do it.”
Placing the metal disk down, the man lifted his shaggy body up, shuffling over to the bench and grasping around before returning to his seat and taking a small mallet off the hooks. Young John Swiftfur carried out the long haft, the length of dark wood long as he was tall.
Quickly, it was hustled over to the larger man as he took the head and hammer in one hand to receive the blank staff. He took it, lifting it in one hand, the fur over his arms hiding the signs of a high-strength stat. He quickly took the haft and pressed the haft into the collar around the base of the head, giving it a good press fit before laying it upon the anvil, head vertical and asked, “John, come over here and hold it down for me, would you.”
John did, holding the long length still while the smith muttered. The elder, presumably his master, placed a small rod of black wood against the collar and held the mallet ready.
“Over, back. The other way, John. Yep, a little further… There, hold it there,” he said quietly, a level of focus extending from him as a whorl of mana before he took a deep breath and spoke, “[One Tap] [Smooth Set] [Reversible Fastener] [Power Strike].”
He moved in a smooth motion, the mallet falling on the pin with an inexorable movement, like that of a mountain, and drove the wooden pin through the metal collar twice in one strike of his mallet before sitting up straight.
“Nifty skill,” I told him, “Also niche as hell, the luck I knew Gunther to find someone with a skill for making a permanent fastener removable.”
“Ay. It’s a skill that most wouldn’t have… Well, unless they make things like metal door hinges. Anyway, that’s all it needed on my end, though; if you need some help with something else odd, feel free to drop by again,” he said with a puff of mana that I could tell altered my opinion.
Something like [Repeat Customer], perhaps.
“Nice try on your skill there,” I told him, “Though I might just do that. How hard is that pin stuck? I don’t want to break the damn thing and come running back to you because, no offence to your work, but I’m not made of money.”
I was made, in a way, but I also didn’t want to spend absurd sums of silver on repairing tools over and over because I was a dolt who broke them.
“No clue what you’re talking about, good miss, though that’s a damn shame to hear,” he said wolfishly, “But suppose a good word from you might do me good business besides if you would be willing to help an old dog out? To answer you, you don’t need to worry about wrecking the pin. It's Ancient Craigwood, sub-200 strength you can’t even cut it without a magical axe. Just get a pin or a dowel and give it a good thump with a hammer,” the ‘old’ smith told me with a gestured whack.
“Sounds expensive for the quote, but hey, if it fits the cost, I have nothing against it, may I?” I asked him, gesturing to the spade, a bit of glee sending a tingle down my arm and up my neck.
“Sure thing,” he told me, lifting the long shovel, “John, go turn some lights over here so our fine customer can see our work.”
I walked over to give the final piece a good look as John swiftly moved to the closest lamp and brought it closer to show me the detail.
It had a nice steelhead, with an edge flat and sharp enough to shave if the slight glint was anything to go by. There had been some loss in material around the edges, too, giving it more of a spade look, still curved to the point but slightly smaller and more rectangular, like a proper trenching spade. I could spot the dark wood pin, a deep greyish-red that blended in well with the metal, but for its lack of shimmer, I could have overlooked it as a blemish. The unoiled lilac wood, while light in colour and bland at a glance, had little stringy lines of light purple that spoke of the mystical tree’s light. I could bet that when I was done, it would look quite nice with a bit of oil to make the grain stand out.
“This looks wonderful. What oil do you think I should use out of curiosity? I could use any oil, but that doesn’t make it the best,” I asked him.
“It's not the oil-” They both said before the young Swiftfur caught himself and quieted. Master Longfur stopped, too, before giving his junior an encouraging, “Speak up, apprentice. Give your thoughts.”
The chastened Swiftfur hesitated but took the encouragement with a twitch of the tail and a flick of the ear. “Well, most oils will make wood look mostly the same; the difference is in the oil's color. Unless you're using a strange oil, the real question isn’t what oil would look better but what stain would make it look best. If you’re just looking to finish it, seed oil like flax or resin mix will do. Wax is a bit rarer unless you know a beekeeper around here, but it finishes fast.”
He had a tone of authority but not of experience. It was a textbook tone, as I might sound if I was telling someone about a type of mana or something to the same effect. The idea lit a fire under me as I thought it, I should be going to check on the cabin right now, but it also told me what this was. The older man was observing his student, carefully making sure he knew what he was talking about so he would be prepared.
I turned to the master and did my part by asking, “Would wax be a good seal, and could I stain it after?”
“I think that would do good work, especially if you were planning on staining it later and want to keep it from weathering,” he told me with a slightly approving tone, “you would have to either heat it or sand it, but wax would be good for that because it doesn’t go as deep as oil. I wouldn’t comment on the stain because you're strange and no doubt have an idea if you were asking about finishes. Good work, young Swiftfur; now, go and clean up your shavings and bring them here to keep the flame.”
The young man looked astounded; it was a look I couldn’t place, but I could see pride in it. Pride and then a look of determination as he quickly placed the lamp back and slunk off.
We both watched him go before I turned to the smith and told him, “I wish I could say my apprenticeship gave me a look like that,” I told him.
“Sounds like you don’t have a great master,” he told me, less a knock against Anna and more a bit of pride in himself.
“I don’t have a normal master; she's more like a friend.” I told him, “I guess it makes sense because I’m a bit too old, but I wish there was a little of that in my life.”
He let out a hmm like a kettle drum, full of rumbly belting and knowing exactly what my deal was. “That comes with age. It's easier to impress the young; the younger, the more impressionable. We have great power over shaping their lives, so using that power, wielded with respect for their future, is part of a master-apprentice relationship. As an adult, a master might still be impressive and might still wield power over you, but they are less of a master because you are less impressionable, less malleable.”
“Yeah…” I told him to file something away for later, “Wet clay is more malleable, so that power does more work, but when it dries up, that power is less impressive.”
“Got it in one,” he told me, “you also know less, so knowing means more… I bet he’ll be more agreeable for a week, maybe less from the downpour, Swiftfur do hate the rain, but still, a few days longer. Thank you for picking up on that, strange clan friend.”
“Afraid of a revolt from the young man?” I asked.
“You know how the young get; the boy barely has a class. I’m sure you remember what it was like waiting for your next level, the next skill; he can barely stand still and he's all twitchy… Now, I hate to cut this short or be rude, especially to an honored friend, but do take that absurd ‘shovel,’ and hop out of my hair. I have work to do, even on a rainy day. I got to get an order ready for a few hours from now, and I can’t be a good host and fix sixty shovels at the same time.” He told me, in a no-nonsense way, born out of pragmatism.
“I will, I think I know who those shovels are for, and they’re needed.” I told him, which got an eyebrow, but not much else.
“Not to talk down to you, but you would have to be a right moron to not figure it out given last night's... ruinous conclusion. Now out before you start growing moss and cool the forge.” He said lightheartedly.
I retrieved my shovel and [Inspected] it and my cloak while we left the smithy, because it was mine, and I damn well felt like it and didn’t feel disappointed in the few silver it took to get it.
> Uncommon, Modified Spade Staff, Condition: Pristine
> Description:
>
> A mundane but modified steel shovel head affixed to a blank staff made from Lilac wood by a removable pin of scrap Craigwood, and modified to have sharp edges despite its nature as a tool used for digging, and for magic.
>
> The Lilac woods are the mystical woods of the Goblin people, best known for their namesake glowing flowers, magical fruit, songlike chime, and their shared hatred of Human kind. Its said that the wood is indeed, one large tree, with each root connecting back to the heart of the forest. It is said that wherever Goblins go they carry a sprout, bringing the Lilac woods with them to mark a new colony.
> Lilac woods are known to carry a magical poison in their sap, that collects in their pristine buds, before being transformed into a seedless fruit known to have life extending property’s.
>
> The Ancient Craigwoods that lay on the western coast of the continent of beasts are a notable magical tree said to be among the tallest in the world. Accordingly, when felled, a mature tree creates a great deal of Craigwood, much of which is only minorly magical, with the heartwood being capable of grand earth magics, and outermost rings being simply hard. This leaves much of the scrap wood both too hard for low level carpentry, but also plentiful enough for those with the tools or strength to work it.
> Minorly Magical, Slayer goat wool cloak, Condition: Pristine.
> Description:
>
>
>
> A traditional Beastkin cloak, woven from the wool of a slayer goat. Worn in two pieces, it is common for Beastkin to be granted one piece once they prove themselves as an adult, with men gaining the lower, and women the upper, with the other being given to those of status, or that otherwise prove themselves to their clan, symbolizing a transcendence of both age and social roll.
>
> Rarely given to those outside a clan, non Beastkin who don the cloth are seen as family and known as friend because it may only be acquired through a deed great enough to satisfy their elders.
>
> This cloak was granted by Elder Mathias Longfur to Saphine for saving his great-grandchild from peril when no one else could, despite both great peril, and a lack of reward.
>
> The Beastkin are an anthropomorphic Quilinoid species that often resemble large predatory animals, similar to how a Beast resembles its lesser kin. It is said, long ago, the First Beastkin turned his back on his own people, forsaking them, for which they cursed him and his family to scatter into the wind, forever changed to show they were not but wild animals.
>
> Slayer goats are both a horrifying and perplexing Beast, both because visually they have more in common with both a wolf and a sheep then a goat and are carnivorous. Originating from highlands of the rocky eastern coast, slayer goats have a known taste for the flesh of Monsters which they prefer over anything else, often seeking them out in packs. Their coats are said to both protect them and hide their nature, their minorly magical fleece keeping them warm and dry, while also being harder to cut, and minorly mending, traits that are preserved even after being shorn.
>
> Slayer goats are known to pretend to be regular sheep, enticing prey in with an easy meal, and are believed to be at least intelligent enough to understand and adapt this hunting strategy, while also being desperate enough for Monster meat that some goats will starve themselves if none is presented, which grants them their name, as it shares this trait with those of [Slayer] type classes who are known to crave and be addicted to the energy present in their target of choice.
That was both enlightening and disturbing, but stopping in the doorway staring at the cloak I was wearing was not the place to take that information in, especially because Gunther would be liable to kick me in the ass, so I made my way out into the rain where I could ponder this knowledge on my own time. And just like that, our time together ended.
I walked back with her, dropped off a cloak after mucking around with trying to get it dry like Anna, partially succeeded, decided to wring it out instead, and said my goodbyes to Gunther, who apparently had another meeting to attend to.
And despite my distaste for the little munchkin and her ineffable ego, I found myself not hating it, even if she did annoy the hell’s out of me.
And so, I quickly set out for home, warm and dry with a cloak and clothes, new shovel in hand, and extra stuff bundled behind me. Off to finish up a loose end, and make sure we hadn’t been robed, because if anything could set me back even further than I already was, it would be trying to patch the gap after telling Anna her livelihood had been ruined.