Thaddeus spent the next two days planning and crafting timber. His first solo attempt netted him 132 poor-quality planks and a single poor-quality beam. He was more effective at producing wood scraps than usable construction material. But he progressively got better, and by the fifth timber, he could produce 160 good-quality planks and 4 good-quality beams 85% of the time.
For the new three in-game game days, he would wake up, get to work for two hours, stop to wash up and eat breakfast, work for four hours, stop to wash up and eat lunch, work for another for hours, stop to wash up and eat dinner.
By Wednesday, he was able to produce good-quality lumber 100% of the time. Sure, the work was repetitive, but Thaddeus enjoyed seeing the lumber. He could finally see the final product from his hours spent toiling in the forest felling trees and hauling those heavy bastards to the sawmill.
Thaddeus couldn’t help but smile, he was anxious to craft something. He couldn’t wait to make something with his own hands, from the wood he chopped and lumber he planed and jointed. A smile crept onto his face in happy anticipation.
By Thursday he was able to 150 good-quality planks, 20 excellent-quality planks, and 4 good-quality beams. As the day progressed, the ratio of good-quality lumber to excellent-quality lumber was slowly changing, as his woodworking level increased to 51. Thaddeus checked his quest to see his progress.
Quest Received: Lumber
Joshua the carpenter needs you to join and plane 9/24-remaining oak, cedar, and pine trees for lumber. Each beam and plank must reach a minimum standard of [Good] to quality. Missing 6 good-quality timber.
By lunch, he’d likely finish converting the rest of the timber to lumber tomorrow. That would give him the afternoon to himself. He debated whether to visit the church or visit Roy to learn how to smith. He really wanted to learn his felt spell, but based on the cost of books, it would probably cost him a tidy sum to purchase one spell scroll.
Together with his wages from Josh and his starting coppers he only had 30 coppers left. He needed to figure out how to either earn more money or borrow money from Josh and take money from his wages. However, the first step was pricing the cost earth spell scroll at the Church of Light. Which meant he visit Roy, tomorrow to learn forging.
Friday afternoon, Thaddeus walked into the blacksmith shop. It was even more crowded than we first visited a week ago. Players were in a frenzy to purchase uncommon weapons. Thaddeus took a quick look and analyzed the players. Most players had reached Level 8, and a few had already reached Level 9. Which meant the first player to reach Level 10 was soon to happen. Players would start leaving White Pines and head to Pinewood City, one of the seven cities in the Acadian Empire.
“Oh, about time lad, I was starting to think I had scared you off,” Roy laughed as he motioned me to follow him through the back door.
As we walked to forge,
“Business must be good,” Thaddeus said as they walked to the forge. He watched as another clerk entered the storefront.
“Aye, business is good. I’m having trouble getting weapons on the shelf. But truth be told, I miss my peace and quiet. I miss the village the way it was before your Travelers arrived. Sure, we had problems with the wolves, but we managed. This place used to be nice and neighborly. Now, I rarely get a chance to speak to town residents. Everything is quests, quests, and more quests. It’s damn annoying, that’s what it is!” Roy explained.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Thaddeus apologized.
“What are you apologizing for, you’re the only decent one. I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to an old man bellyache about his problems. Last I talked to Alice and Josh, they gave you lots of compliments. I hear you’re a hard worker, who takes pride in his work, you’ll make a fine crafter yet,” Roy praised.
“Thank you,” Thaddeus said happy to hear Josh and Alice were saying positive things about him.
“Now let’s talk about Blacksmithing. The blacksmithing apprenticeship is the longest of all the crafter apprenticeships. Usually, an apprentice will study with their teacher for six months to a year. Students must first memorize various ores and how to stoke a fire before they are even able to touch a forge to smelt iron. Now, that’s the required training for a metalsmith, but you don’t want to be a metalsmith do you, laddie?” Roy asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know what a metalsmith is?” Thaddeus explained.
“What? Has Josh not taught you crafter specializations?” Roy asked in shock.
Thaddeus shook his head no.
“Hmm, maybe he was waiting to tell you after finished producing all that lumber,” Roy thought out loud. “Well, it’s no bother really. I’ll tell you now and he can supplement what I tell you.”
“Okay,” Thaddeus said, unsure of the correct response.
“Alice, Josh, and I are general crafters. Our teachers taught us a little about each specialization. However, every craft has different specializations, for which you can study and become a master. Only specialists can reach the master and grandmaster ranks. Generalists like us can only reach the expert level before we are level capped.
The specializations for carpentry are Woodcraft, Bowyer, Cartwright, Shipwright, Cooper, and Fletcher. Woodcraft is the generalist category. Yes, I know it doesn’t make sense that you can specialize in general carpentry, but that’s the way it works. Now just cause you to specialize in one area, doesn’t mean you can’t learn the rest. It just means you devote your skill points to that one specialization.
Now the specializations for blacksmiths are Metalsmith, Toolsmith, Weaponsmith, Locksmith, Farrier, Coinsmith, and Jeweler. I’m a metalsmith. But, based on our previous discussion, I’ll teach you tool smithing. A toolsmith is a blacksmith that specializes in housewares and tools. Toolsmiths and Farriers are the lowest class of blacksmith because they normally only forge copper or tin molds. But I’ll teach ya’ to hammer iron, don’t worry about that.
Leatherworking has the fewest specializations, that’s because all leatherworkers are trained how to tailor and cobble. Instead, leatherworkers specialize in hides. General leatherworkers like Alice are adept at tanning domesticated and common wild beast hides. Monster leatherworkers can tan uncommon monsters like goblin, orc, and troll hides. Lastly, Mythical leatherworkers can tan rare, epic, and even legendary creatures.
You should know every king and emperor in this work wants to hire a Dragon leatherwork or grandmaster craftsman. Grandmaster crafters are rare and highly suited. If you ever reach that stage, you can live a fat, happy, life in some king’s castle,” Roy explained.
After hearing Roy’s explanation, Thaddeus better understood the crafting skill trees in-game. He was blown away at how extensive crafting was in Heaven’s Gates. Not only would players have to rank and level up, but they also had to progress through a specialization.
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“Are you ready to get to smithing?” Roy chuckled throwing 3 books at Thaddeus. “Read up. You’ll need to commit these books to memory, which Josh said isn’t a problem for you. Oh, they’re also one silver, a piece.”
System Message
Would you like to read [Smelting for Dummies], [Practical Blacksmithing], and [Forging for Fools]? Y/N
Thaddeus wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or insulted by Roy’s book choices for him. Thaddeus selected yes, as the books glimmered again, and the information planted inside in his head.
“I can’t believe Josh was right about that. When he told me how the books glow and the information just appears in your head, I didn’t believe him,” Roy whispered out loud in astonishment.
“Well, it’s true. But it hurts like hell,” Thaddeus explained.
Roy led Thaddeus to forge and gave him a brief tour. He explained how the forged worked, and how to stoke the woodchips. He showed Thaddeus the different ores and quizzed them on their properties. Thanks to the book Practical Blacksmithing, Thaddeus correctly identified the correct ores and listed their properties.
“Truly impressive. It took me four weeks to pass that damnable test, and you ace it in a matter of minutes. God Hephaestus, please grant me the same blessing!” Roy prayed.
“Wait, you worship the God of Darkness?” Thaddeus asked Roy worriedly.
“All dwarves and dwarves halflings do, why? Are you prejudiced?” Roy asked getting angry.
“He’s the God of Darkness, you know evil,” Thaddeus explained his worry.
“Ha-ha,” Roy busted out laughing, grabbing his gut and doubling over in amusement.
“What’s so funny?” Thaddeus asked.
“Darkness is an affinity-neutral affinity, it’s not evil. Do you, Travelers, know nothing? Darkness is affinity that deals with creation, manipulation, and construction. Dwarves are born in darkness, live in darkness, work in darkness, and when they die, they are buried in darkness,” Roy explained like it was common sense.
Thaddeus was definitely getting the feeling; religion was like an in-game cult. He understood dwarves worked inside the mountains mining and crafting, but he never considered darkness as an affinity that was not evil or bad, but neutral.
“I understand now,” Thaddeus lied. He would surely need to study in-game lore more.
“Good, let’s get started. I’ll teach you how to smelt,” Thaddeus said, putting his notifications on silence.
For the next four hours, Thaddeus smelted tin, copper, and iron until Roy was satisfied with his work. When he finished, his shirt was drenched in sweat. Thaddeus wiped his sweat. Hours ago he found a piece of cloth and decided to use it as a bandana to keep the sweat from dripping into his eyes. That rag was now completely soaked. Since he was finished for the day, he turned on his notification and saw that he learned a new skill.
System Message
New Active Skill: Smelting. At higher levels can identify the quality of ores.
Stat Increase: +1 to STR, +1 CON, +100 EXP
Level 1: Novice Level 1
Effect: Increased speed and accuracy of smelting
Cost: 10 STR/second
“Well done lad, it’s late. When don’t you have dinner at my house tonight? I’ll already let Josh know you’d be home late today,” Roy explained.
Thaddeus followed Roy to his house above his shop. It seemed like more crafters lived above their stores in town. Roy wondered if he’d end up doing the same thing.
Roy’s wife was Martha, she looked to be half-dwarf too with dark chestnut hair and eyes. Around the table, sat their five children already eating. Marth was an excellent cook. She served Thaddeus a slice of double-crusted meat pie filled with minced mutton. The pie was good, hearty, and filling. Thaddeus washed it down with several pints of Dwarvish Amber Ale, Roy’s name for his homebrew. According to him, the tavern sold the stuff, but you had to request it. He didn’t want those no-good Travelers drinking his brew.
The next few days were a blur, Thaddeus would work at the sawmill in the morning, and the blacksmith in the afternoon. He felled six trees and hauled them to the sawmill to complete the quest Josh gave him. Roy taught him basic anvil work to make ingots: heating, shaping, reheating, shaping, and repeating. Thaddeus dedicated himself to making his lumber and ingots flat and smooth.
Over that time, he picked up his second blacksmithing skill:
System Message
New Active Skill: Forging. At higher levels can identify the quality of ingots.
Stat Increase: +1 to STR, +1 CON, +100 EXP
Level 1: Novice Level 1
Effect: Increased speed and accuracy of forging
Cost: 10 STR/second
“Watch your heat lad,” Roy warned him.
Thaddeus was hard at work forging his final exam, his blacksmith hammer. Over the past few days, Roy taught him how to make nails, screws, bolts, fasteners, and his carpentry tools. All the sexy things people dream about when they decided to craft in-game.
“You need to keep heat control in mind whether you’re making nails, an axe, or a plowshare,” Roy advised Thaddeus.
“Done,” Thaddeus said, putting the blacksmith hammer into the quenching bucket.
Before Roy could say anything, Thaddeus already knew he met qualification when a notice popped up.
System Message
New Active Skill: Toolsmith. At higher levels can identify the quality of metalwork.
Stat Increase: +1 to STR, +1 CON, +100 EXP
Level 1: Novice Level 1
Effect: Increased speed and accuracy of forging tools and household wares.
Cost: 10 STR/second
But, he was surprised to see he level up. He finally caught up to most of the players in White Pines.
System Message
Congratulations you have reached Level 8. You have 5 Stat Points to allocate.
“Not bad lad. This hammer should serve you well until you advance to apprentice. Feel free to stop by my forge anytime for practice. As long as you do a little tool smithing for me, I’ll pay you in ingots. Whatever you sell, the profit is yours to keep. Alice told me to tell you the same thing, I think she misses you lad if you know what I’m saying,” Roy winked, before grabbing his belly and bursting into a laugh.
It was late by the time he finished. Thaddeus grabbed his new hammer and walked back to his bedroom in the sawmill. On his way there, he figured he should review his stat sheet. He currently had 40 unused stats points along from leveling he need to allocate. Forcing himself to make a decision, he put 15 into Intelligence, 10 into Strength, 10 into Constitution, and 5 into Vitality.
Name: Thaddeus
SKILL NAME
SKILL LEVEL
Race: Human/Bear kin
Load Bearing (Racial)
Class: Carpenter
Nature Affinity (Racial)
Level: 8 (1503/1750)
Oversized Weapons (Racial)
HP: 495/495
Earth Magic
1
MP: 390/390
Two-Handed Axe
15
STR: 39
Lumberjack
56
AGI: 13
Analyze
61
VIT: 15
Surveyor
43
INT: 30
Field Dress
5
WILL: 13
Woodworking
57
CON: 33
Cooking
1
Charm: 8
Leatherworking
51
Free Attribute Points: 0
Tailoring
40
Free Skill Points: 0
Forging
51
Smelting
55
Toolsmith
1