With the town having shrunk, and the overall numbers of visitors and traders visiting, the various stores that once dotted Baro were all gone. Now, all that was left standing was the general store. The town did have a baker and a blacksmith but you had to place the order through the general store. The baker could not produce or sell enough goods to make having his own shop front worthwhile, and the blacksmith simply didn’t want to deal with running a shop, instead letting Whesker, the man who owned the general store, take the orders and a cut, though most orders were simple repair jobs for pieces of farming equipment.
Ambrose entered the general store. It was a cluttered place, filled with bits and bobs, most of which appeared to be many years old though kept in near perfect condition. A large and rather furry man, who Ambrose surmised could only be Whesker, sat behind a counter reading a book. He held up a single large finger, indicating for Ambrose to not interrupt his reading.
Ambrose began to look around at the various wares that filled the shelves, and was disappointed to recognise most of the stuff. Various bits of décor, plates, cutlery, clothes, materials, and farming implements made up the most of it. There was even a sizable section of books, which Ambrose was surprised, and relieved, to find he could read, when flicking through one.
The main thing that drew Ambrose’s attention, was a set of books in a locked glass cabinet, that sat behind Whesker. The cabinet alone was of interest, being the only visible container that Ambrose could see, that appeared locked. The books that sat inside, each sat prominently in the cabinet, all showing their cover, which was filled with a single symbol, each different from the last.
I would bet my meagre funds that those are skill books. The book in the centre of the cabinet was larger, its cover having more filigree, its symbol more detailed, and Ambrose felt it almost calling to him, a deep feeling of desire seemed to emanate from within his body and the book simultaneously.
Finishing his chapter, Whesker put his book down and finally acknowledged Ambrose. “Ah, you must be this mysterious traveller I heard rumours about.” The man followed Ambrose’s gaze, standing and moved around the counter to properly greet his perspective client. His voice came out higher than expected of his large form.
“Ah I see you have taken an interest in my Skill books. Wait, I know that look, you're being drawn in by my fire magic basics book aren’t you.”
Whesker held out his hand, towering over Ambrose by several feet now that he was standing. “Whesker by the way. That little beauty will set you back a thousand gold, but it’ll activate the Fire magic Skill and teach you all you need to know about the basics of fire magic, and even some hints about possible ways to evolve it. Both will give you a solid foundation in the various related theory Skills too. That’s all provided you have the proficiency for it of course. But I can tell it's calling to you, so that should be no problem.”
Ambrose slowly shook the large man’s hand. His left eye was twitching in suppressed rage, though Whesker misinterpreted the meaning. “Ah I suppose you wouldn’t exactly be able to afford that, if pretty much any of the various rumours about you are true. No need to worry yourself, it’ll still be here whenever you come by. Been here for longer than I have, and I’ve been around for over forty years now, had to promise to sell it to an adventurer in the area as part of becoming the owner here.
Of course I have the Affinity for fire magic, hell seeing as they were all balanced out, I can probably use any elemental magic. If only it wasn’t FUCKING BANNED.
Internal raging out of the way for now, Ambrose took a centering breath and looked up to meet the strange looking man’s gaze. Fortunately Ambrose hadn’t been caught off guard by the appearance of the furry giant, with Luce having warned him during her tour. Apparently Whesker was a Bestial Giantkin, a cross between a lesser giant, and a species that could consume and then adapt various animal traits into their bodies, called a Morphophage. The result was a very tall man with thickened skin, and dark red fur along the outside of his arms and face.
“Ah yeah, I only have nine gold left to my name so that’s a touch out of my price range. I’m Ambrose by the way. If the fancy one is fire magic, what are the other ones for?”
Whesker had moved around his counter once again and sat back down. “Well I suppose that narrows down your history a fair bit I'd say, not often people can’t read the basic profession concepts afterall.” the man explained, letting out a slow guffaw at Ambrose’s expense.
As I just mentioned, those concepts are all for basic professions, with the books being a guide for each of the Skills they relate too. Common, but extremely valuable for a small town where most don’t learn the Skills anymore, until they are actually needed. Not much use for someone else with a Smithing Skill when the current smith sits around doing gods know what most of the year.” another chuckle escaped as he continued his story. “I do my best to keep at least a copy of each of the important ones when I can. I haven't been able to afford any of the uncommon professions recently though.”
“Anyway that’s enough of my blubbing, I am sure you came by for a reason dear boy.” Whesker turned an inquisitive eye on Ambrose.
“Yes I was hoping to pick up a profession or two of my own actually, Tailoring seems to be easy enough to get the basics for? I was hoping to get all the tools I would need to cover the whole skill if that is possible?”
“Well Tailoring is one of those uncommon Skills I was talking about, though I do have a Sewing book that you could then upgrade. As for the tools, you will need pins and needles obviously, some shears, scissors, an iron, a lucet, a spindle, and material to practise on. That will get you through all of the lower levels, to push you over though you will probably also need a spinning wheel, and loom. Then there are all of the holders and containers, and also thimbles if you don’t want to stab yourself.”
Ambrose was a little overwhelmed at it all already, but Whesker continued. “And that is just for the basics, you then need all of the tools in a couple different metals, if you want to handle magic materials properly, as well as the various powders and ointments that go with them. Also upgrading your loom and spinning wheel to the magimated forms to improve your overall qualities, reduce material use, and save time. Though you would need to head to somewhere a little more populated to find all of that.”
“If you want the hand tools, a couple needles, pins, and some practice materials I can do that for about five gold. The book on its own, for you I'm afraid, is a hundred. There should be a small hand loom that I could give you for three gold, but the proper thing with all its relevant bits and bobs is thirty, and the spinning wheel is twenty.”
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“Any chance I could take a look at the book so I could get some starting hints?”
“Oh dear boy, that uh, amnesia of yours must be rather bad to have forgotten such basic information.” The part giant gave a knowing wink alongside a hearty laugh.
“Skill books are imbued with knowledge and the concept of the Skill, which can only be used the once. Additionally to stop theft, they are created to be bound to someone and require the seller, me, to do the binding. So no, I really can’t let you open the book, nor could you open it yourself, unless you have a particularly good unbinding Skill hiding up your sleeve.”
Ambrose sighed, having once again been caught out by his lack of knowledge. His quest to restore a crafting hall, and beat the crafting challenge was looking to be out of his reach.
Spending eight of his nine remaining gold, Ambrose took the hand tools, the small loom, and a set of practice materials consisting of some unspun wool, some rags, and some thread.
Ambrose packed everything back into his bag and prepared to return to the dungeon, it was looking like he would need to kill a whole lot of monsters, hopefully the tools he had would be enough to bring the hall back, that way he could save the money to get the book before needing to craft things.
Once Ambrose had made it through the mountain tunnel, and entered back into the dungeon proper, Prism floated back out of the bag.
“Welcome back. I see you have managed to acquire some tools and materials, would you like to donate them to the dungeon?”
“If I donate the materials would I be allowed to use them?”
“No, donating materials adds them to the dungeon stores, allowing Residents to purchase the item and unlocking the item for me to create additional copies of, those at a greater price. As I already have access to those materials, donating the materials would only give you a small amount of dungeon contribution.”
“Alright, let's just add the tools into the Tailoring room then.”
His bag suddenly got lighter as the tools were disintegrated, presumably being added to the room.
“Thank you Ambrose. In order to restore the Tailoring hall to a basic working condition you only need to acquire a spinning wheel.”
“Of course. Any chance you can loan me twenty gold to buy one?”
“Unfortunately not, you can only have a single non system quest, where you have already received the rewards, at a time.
“Yeah, it was worth a shot. So what order am I meant to do the dungeon in, and am I able to find cotton or wool around here?”
“The area you are currently in, the valley, is considered zone one, it is generally the easiest and is safer around the edges, as long as you don't get too close to any abutting zones. The fort is the second zone. The forest is the third zone, and the mountain is the final area. All zones other than the first contain a possible boss fight, with the lair of the final boss being contained in a sub zone at the bottom of the mountain. Additionally each zone contains materials relating to the various crafting halls, the valley contains materials focusing on the Tailoring hall, which includes Leatherworking, though that room in the hall is no longer available. The fort contains Engineering components. The Forest, as one would expect, contains Carpentry materials, and the mountain contains Forging materials. Enchanting and Alchemy materials can be found within all zones, being more frequent or useful in the higher zones.”
“Right, thanks for that. Time to go hunting I guess.”
Instead deciding it was time for food, Ambrose searched his bag for his remaining rations and his hand stumbled upon a very squished and sticky slab of meat. Ambrose screwed his face up in disgust pulling out the wet blob.
“Ah yeah, forgot I wanted to get that checked for poison. Maybe tomorrow.”
As he enjoyed the crunch of the otherwise boring rations, Ambrose went through his large collection of notifications, this time adding the option to have the Ability update section include his existing Abilities, that were affected by his new Skills, as well as listing all Skills affecting the new Abilities.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED NEW SKILLS
You have gained the Skill Swimming at Level 1 (Common): Can’t be bothered finding a bridge? .
* Improved swimming when using Swimming Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Assessing at Level 4 (Common): Because otherwise you would need common sense to know you shouldn’t fight a thing.
* Increased understanding of creature strengths and weaknesses when using Assessing Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Hiking at Level 1 (Uncommon): Have boots, will travel.
* Reduced effects of travel when using Hiking Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Patience at Level 3 (Uncommon): When dealing with something boring it helps if you completely phase out.
* Reduced perception of time when using Patience Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Grappling at Level 1 (Uncommon): Slam ‘em to the ground.
* Increased effect of Strength of Body when being the aggressor while using Grappling Abilities.
* Increased effect of Speed of Body when being of the victim of Grappling type Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Dodging at Level 2 (Uncommon): If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a Dungeonese Wolf Spider.
* Increased effect of Speed of Mind when using Dodging Abilities.
* Increased effect of Speed of Body when using Dodging Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Butchering at Level 1 (Uncommon): Cut ‘em, slash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew!.
* Improved quality of cuts, when using Butchering Abilities.
* Improved anatomy knowledge in relation to Butchering Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Skinning at Level 1 (Uncommon): Just don't use it on people.
* Improved quality of cuts, when using Skinning Abilities.
* Improved anatomy knowledge in relation to Skinning Abilities.
By gaining these Skills you have gained the following Abilities.
* Swim (Swimming): The opposite of drowning.
* Assess (Assessing, Perception): What do you mean the giant is stronger than me!
* Travel (Hiking, Running): You could walk five thousand miles, and then five thousand more, she still wouldn’t like you.
* Meditate (Patience): Just let the world, and all your troubles, drift away.
* Wait (Patience): Eventually it’ll do something.
* Work Mindlessly (Patience): Might as well work while experiencing that mental rabbit hole.
* Tackle (Grappling, Jumping): Knock ‘em down.
* Grapple (Grappling): And keep ‘em there.
* Create Meat (Butchering): Find the tasty bits.
* Remove Organs (Butchering): Find them and remove them intact, wouldn’t want to spoil the juicy, juicy meat!
* Create Skin (Skinning): When you really want them to take it all off.
Your new Skills have also affected the following Abilities in some way.
* Exploit Weakness (Small Blades, Butchering)
* Tolerate Pain (Pain Resistance, Patience)
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE NURTURED YOUR SKILLS
* Your Stealth Skill has increased in level: 8 -> 9
* Your Running Skill has increased in level: 2 -> 4
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