Garrett shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Wally. "I'm Garrett. This is Blixie and my pet slime Squishy." He motioned to the others. "So where have you been for the last hundred years?"

"Oh, I've been off here and there traveling and looking for inspiration and materials for my latest works." Wally said as he moved to a door on the left wall and flung it open. "I created what I call a heating element using the scales and blood of a salamander. It will keep a room comfortably warm, or it can be used to heat an oven without the need for using wood."

Blixie looked at his excited face and in a quiet voice said, "Umm, enchanters figured out how to do those things a couple of decades ago using normal monster cores as a source of power."

Wallie's face fell a little bit. "I see. No matter then." He said as he tossed his creation to the side. "What about this?" He asked as he held up a small replica of a house. "I call it indoor water on request. This is a model that I designed to show the use of an Undines core and a network of metal pipes throughout a house to fill your bathing tub or even your pots for cooking and washing without having to carry heavy buckets from a well."

"Enchanters made something similar in larger cities by connecting pipes to a portal to the elemental plane of water to provide water for whole cities. It even allows for indoor toilets." Blixie replied.

His face fell a little further. "What about a torch that won't lose its flame and doesn't give off heat or burn things? You would never have to worry about lighting up a home or going into a dark dungeon."

"Mana powered light crystals in homes and on poles along streets were first created about twenty years ago by enchanters. Adventurers also carry a stone with a similar enchantment instead of torches." Blixie said with a sigh. "In fact, Garrett has one."

With a sigh Wally plopped onto the ground. "I guess they probably have this then." He pulled out what looked like a plain metal helmet that had several rings of runes on it.

Blixie stared at it in confusion then pulled out her Legends cards and flipped through the pages. "I don't recognize it. What does it do." She asked.

"It is just a simple helmet that cleans, cuts, colors, and styles one's hair." He said in a bored tone. "Something simple that only took me a few years to make, but everyone probably already has one if enchanters have advanced as far as you say they have." He tossed the helmet into the fire burning in the oversized hearth with a grunt of frustration. "I guess no one needs an old out of touch smith like me anymore."

"Ahhh!" Blixie yelled in horror as she rushed toward the fire to pull out the helmet. "What are you doing. You would be famous if you sold that in the cities. There has never been anything like that yet." The fire was too hot for her to get closer than a couple of feet.

Garrett felt April tug him toward the closet that Wally was pulling his creations out of. He looked in and saw an arm made of metal poking out of a pile of scraps that had been pushed into a corner. "What is that, Wally?" He asked as he pointed to it.

Wally looked back and huffed. "Just a failed experiment from a few decades ago." He said as he reached over and pulled out a metal mannequin that was about the size of the orc from the Adventurers guild. It was missing the front chest plate and was full of gears and wires and springs. "I was trying to recreate a suite of armor I saw in a dungeon once. It was supposed to move under its own power and be an assistant, but I could never get it right. I had forgotten about it."

Garrett felt April practically vibrating on his arm before she somehow jumped onto the mannequin and landed on its chest. "Sorry Wally." He said. "The straps on my shield must be loose."

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Wally stared wide eyed as a small glow shone from under the shield and a slight buzzing sound started. "Is that? A Living Shield! Of course." He shouted as he picked himself up off the ground. "Why didn't I think of that. It makes complete sense now." He excitedly walked around and examined the mannequin.

"Wait, you know what a Living Shield is?" Garrett exclaimed. The arms and legs of the mannequin gave little shivers and slight movements.

"Of course, I know what a Living Shield is. They are now very rare, but you see them from time to time in old dungeons. A couple hundred years ago it was a point of pride for monster tamers if they could bond with one." Wally gave a snort. "Best partners a squishy caster could ask for. They can watch your blind spots and intercept attacks just as well as the best warriors out there, but if someone tried to use one that hadn't been tamed, they would find that the shield would avoid blocking things. As monster tamers become scarcer, they came to be called cursed shields. I'm surprised someone of your level has one to be honest."

"You know what my level is?" Garrett asked. He worried that if the dwarf could see his level maybe he could see Garrett's race as well. Wally knew what a living shield was so who knew what else the dwarf had knowledge of.

"Well, not exactly." Wally said as he pulled out a small notebook and started writing about the interaction of the mannequin and the living shield. "After you interact with the amount of people I have in my life you develop a feeling for the power and general level of a person. It is especially helpful when making weapons and armor to know how much someone can handle you see."

Garrett was relieved when Wally's attention was piqued by April, now fused to the mannequin, as she slowly rose up to stand between them. Wally laughed hysterically as he continued to take down notes. "This is fantastic. This will advance my designs by leaps and bounds. Oh, I'm so glad that you found my little shop." Wally seemed more animated now than he had the entire time the group had been there.

"I'm glad we could help." Garrett said. "Sorry about your assistant, armor, thing." He looked over at April and saw her slowly moving about to test her new body. "I don't think she will let it go, so, how much do I owe you for it?" Garrett was hoping Wally wouldn't ask to just keep her for research purposes. It might be hard to explain her ability to talk.

"Owe?" Wally looked over confused as his attention was pulled away from the supreme curiosity that was April. "Don't worry about it. You helped me figure out the last part of my work that I had given up on. In fact," Wally quickly shuffled over to the closet and after a moment of rummaging around pulled out a small, plain, wooden box. He went over to Garrett and handed it to him. "I want you to have this and go ahead and take one of the weapons off the wall to equip your living shield with." Wally waved to the wall by the forge. "I guess it is more of a living armor now I guess" He chuckled.

"Thank you so much for all this but it is too much. We couldn't accept it." Garrett said as he waved his hands in front of him.

"Nonsense. Think of these as a payment. Besides the weapons are just my sub-par work that didn't sell and are just going to waste here. Also open the box already."

Garrett sighed in acceptance and opened the box. Inside he saw a bright orange chunk of metal with flecks of green, the size of an apple. "What is this?"

"That is orichalcum. It is an ore that requires very specific materials and heating processes to refine it, so by itself it is not very useful. But I used to travel with a monster tamer back in the day that told me his living shield loved to chew on the stuff. Kind of like a wolf with a bone."

Garrett looked to April and pictured here laying on the ground with this lump of metal held between her hands and trying to chew on it. It took a lot of effort not to burst out into laughter. By now April had gotten decent control over her body and she wandered over to the wall of weapons she heard Wally talk about and inspected it. It held a few swords, hammers, maces, even a couple of oversized axes, but her eye was drawn to a couple of long metal poles. She lifted them, one in each hand, and felt their weight settle comfortably into her hands. The seemed to be a little heavier near the far ends but over all seemed well made.

Wally saw her interest in the two poles. "Those are just a couple of spare handles I made to add to some axes. Go ahead and take a finished weapon."

April swung the metal handles down to her sides. A slight hum was heard before the handles were pulled with a clank to her legs and stuck there. She then walked around to stand behind Garrett. " I guess she has decided on those, if that is alright." Garrett asked.

Wally sighed. "I don't understand why but go ahead and take them. Now if you will excuse me, I have a lot of notes to review and a lot of work to do now that the old cogs are spinning." Wally turned and walked away to then start organizing the pile of stuff in the closet.

Garrett, Blixie, and Kyle looked at each other, shrugged and walked out of Wally's workshop.