Johan finally got to look around the city with his initial task now finished.

It was a grand sight, seeing so many smithies of varying shapes and sizes, as well as colors, the various hues of blues yellows oranges and red were a stark contrast to the green of the mountain that gradually grew over the city. That was also something, the most fascinating thing to Johan was the gradual rise of the city, making the buildings make a sort of wave of vivid colors, broken up by the smithies that were built of grey brick, as it stretched back beyond what he could see easily from the small plaza that existed around the gate.

It was very much a welcome change of pace as compared to the small, somewhat cramped, room that housed the gates battery array. Unfortunately it was also easy to notice from here the lack of smoke rising out of the smithies.

From what the older guardsman had gobbed about he was able to understand that the city had been hit hard by the lack of funding when the military was suddenly unable to pay to keep ordering weapons.

When the money stopped flowing it did not mean that the crown stopped ordering. Instead the king had forced the smiths to pay out of pocket and never managed to pay them back what was owed. Even now, now that there was a new royal holding power, they still hadn't been paid. The result of all this was either mass executions for failure to comply with the royal mandates or the smiths going broke and no longer being able to afford to work in their fields. Many very talented smiths had died during that time.

It was a sad sight... Though it wasn't as if all the smiths were gone. There were still quite a few, usually these were the ones that had set contracts with mining companies to obtain ores at reduced rates. This meant that, quite unfortunately, only the larger smithies managed to weather the storm, some were even financially stable enough to hire on smaller smithies to help keep up on the quotas.

Nowadays the city, though very rarely, had new smiths appear though they almost never stayed around due to all that had happened back then, and still somewhat happening. Johan was told that although it isn't an all out war like it had been a couple decades ago Karshlan and Menstra still had some border skirmishes here and there. The main difference now however being that the crown never left the smiths unpaid for the work they did. Apparently the current monarch had understood their predecessors folly well.

Putting all this out of his mind Johan walked back to his accommodations. As he continued to walk he found some of the more grungy and dirty areas of the small city. As in any city there was a slum of sorts. He hadn't really noticed it in Northwind, though Northwind was also likely a town that was a bit too small to really have such a place.

Here in Hammer however, was a completely different story. Here he could see those who had given up all hopes and desires mixed with those who had the will and want to escape this place. There were drunks who would use every copper piece they had, and maybe some from others just for a glass of the bitter liquid. These people were mixed with children who ran around doing everything that they could to make a single pip more to try and make a way up for themselves. From what he found out by talking to some of the kids it seemed that most of them became adventurers.

Passing through this depressing, yet simultaneously inspiring place he approached the tavern.

The Bronze Furnace had the feeling of rugged and aged beauty. It was obvious that at its peak before the war got too bad that it had been a somewhat well kept and nice place. The kind that a man may take his family to eat at every now and again if the food was any good.

Now, though, it was a hangout for many of the mercenaries that came through from the various villages and smaller towns that did not have a mercenary guild of their own. It was a place for a good time.

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Johan walked through the door and found himself met with loud laugher, some jeering, and a few smatterings of some of the more drunken mercenaries breaking into older war songs. It was, like he had been told, a bit more of a rough and tumble kind of place.

Johan simply waved to the tavern keep, or rather the mans wife, who nodded at him. The tavern keep had his hands full kicking out a few customers who had made the great mistake of messing with the servers of the restaurant section.

Johan took this as a sign that he was noted and headed up to his room that he was sharing with Markus and Adv. The girls all shared a room while he and Markus were sharing the other, with Adv being in the guys room because in Jens words "It's creepy when he watches you sleep." which Johan could understand.

Having anything, or anyone, watch you sleep could be unnerving, though, for the most part, it didn't really bother Johan a whole lot, since he didn't do much while he slept. Occasionally he would even talk to Adv about a few things, though the conversations tended towards geography lessons for Johan, or Johan explaining how certain aspects of magic worked to the AI.

In the room were two beds, two small desks, one of which, the one Johan used, was where Adv was set during the nights. and a shared wardrobe. It was a bit small, but it did its job. Markus was sitting at the desk closest to his own bed, seemingly doing paperwork, which took Johan off guard for a bit.

"Hey. What are you filling out?" He asked a bit curiously as he sat onto his bed.

"Ah, nothing much. I have to fill out some forms related to the report I made about the goblins. They want to have me go with them once the force is put together. Unfortunately, since this place isn't really a monster hotspot, they'll be recruiting amongst the mercenaries as well. Also... Since I will be going with them... We will be extending our stay.

I believe 2 months would likely suffice, but it may be 3 depending on what goes on with the goblin lord. I know that we could beat it, it is merely a matter of getting the right people up against the creature. With troll warriors as well as shamans, it'll be rough. I'll let the girls know later today." Markus explained before sighing. "Got to say, the paperwork still isn't any better than it used to be."

"Honestly I didn't expect jobs like mercenaries and adventurers to require paperwork like this." Johan replied.

"Yeah, well, normally a guild official would take care of it, but for this specific issue I have to fill out some stuff on my end since I made the report. It sucks, but the world runs on paper. Well, that and coin, of course." Markus flipped the paper over revealing the next form.

"I'm not going to say I'm jealous of you in this moment.

So I guess I should look into an actual job, huh?" Johan was now laying on his back, feeling the pelt blanket he had spread over the straw mattress against his back.

"Probably not a bad idea. You could offer cheaper healing. Lots of people would be more than happy to spend some coin to fix a broken bone in a few minutes rather than weeks." Markus suggested, "Though the church may not be too happy about it."

"I could do that. Would I need something like a business license? Or is there a guild... Or something?" He asked.

"Well, yeah. The merchants guild here isn't huge, as most of the operations in terms of finance are done through the blacksmiths guild in Hammer, as opposed to a case by case like most cities, but Hammer does still have one. It's near the adventurers guild, I'll take you with me when I head over to drop this off tomorrow at noon." Markus waved at the papers in front of him. "Oh, that reminds me, what time is it?"

"Oh, it's a little after 3 now. Got done with the last few batteries today." Johan explained, "It also has helped me tremendously with ideas for the magical gun, at least with the power mechanics of it." Johan said, a bit more excitement in his voice as spoke of it.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Markus said, "It could be a problem in the future since you aren't a registered enchanter. I believe the only guild branch for the enchanters guild is in the capital. of course I don't think there will be a problem if you don't sell items, but I just wanted you to be aware that there may be issues with it."

"I only plan to make enchanted items for our group, and imbued items should be fine since they are fundamentally different even if they operate similarly the majority of the time." Johan explained, "Moreover the gun is for Pat. If this works, like I think it will, she should just need to point and shoot it. The only issues I have now is making a safety and actually figuring out how to transcribe the spells to fit a tube." Johan sighed. He knew he had his work cut out for him.