Jason was quite surprised by how enjoyable he found the next several hours in game. Cedine was a hard taskmistress, expecting him to pay attention to whatever she said the first time so she didn’t have to repeat herself, but she was willing to answer any questions or go back over anything that he didn’t understand fully as she taught him. She’d complain and bitch about having to repeat things, or clarify things, but she’d do it all the same.
Some of the first things that Jason learned was that smithing inside the game didn’t necessarily have to follow the same laws of physics as the real world. Apparently just using different material to polish a weapon could give it different temporary properties. A blade polished with a cotton rag would shine and gain a temporary bonus to its durability, whereas a blade polished across a leather strap would glint and gain a temporary bonus to its damage. Since Drun was as talented with smithing as he was, he was able to polish a weapon or suit of armor with up to three different clothes, bestowing three separate effects upon them.
When smithing, the choice of liquid which a weapon was quenched in as it came off the forge affected it. A blade quenched in normal water gave a normal effect to the steel. One quenched in holy water seemed to pick up some of those holy properties and was more effective against unholy creatures like the undead. A weapon quenched in oil seemed to produce a less damaging, more resilient result. Even such things as kegs of milk, beer, tree sap, and even blood could produce various effects when a weapon was cooled in them after coming off the forge the final time.
There was so much information to take in, Jason wasn’t certain how anyone was supposed to ever learn it all! If the forge was fired with wood, it could produce a different effect on the final product than if coal, peat, or oil was used. Mixing metals to create different ingots to work with required precise combinations of metal – which he could kind of relate to, if he thought of something such as gold.
Gold comes in various karat amounts, depending on how much other metal are mixed in with it. Twenty-four karat gold is pure gold and is too soft to be used for many things, with twelve or fourteen karat gold is what is used for most things, and the metals used in smithing in Winter’s Tale were similar to that. Depending on how iron, copper, and tin were mixed, it could produce anything from bronze to steel to hybrid combinations that didn’t exist in the real world – or at least didn’t exist as far as Jason was aware of, like Copper-Steel, which had the coppery sheen but still most of the durability and power as regular steel.
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Stupidly enough, gold could be used to harden metals in Winter’s Tale – which went against everything his real world logic told him about metallurgy. Gold-Steel was heavier, more durable, and more damaging than normal steel, which made absolutely no sense to him since gold by itself was so soft. Black Gold Steel even surpassed normal gold, but it required first smelting gold with black iron, then smelting that combination with plain iron to produce the final product.
All in all, Jason had to admit the he was enjoying himself learning how it all came together. He’d figured it’d be some simple system of ‘take ore, beat with hammer, make sword, repeat thousands of times for skill-up’, but apparently the game didn’t work like that at all. At least, not according to what he was learning from Cedine! Skills affected the chance of success, and apparently anything was possible in game – even such things as smelting bone powder into iron ore was possible! What Winter’s Tale seemed to rely on was imagination to create new recipes, repetition and practice to get skill levels up, and quality of ingredients.
Jason was beginning to think it really was a game world where ‘anything was possible’, like they claimed, when suddenly everything went black and faded to nothingness. Disorientated, it took Jason several moments before he realized he was starting at the inside of his VRIG helmet, which had somehow lost power. Tugging the helm off his head, he glanced around expecting to find himself in the midst of a blackout or something, but was surprised to see Pam standing there instead in one of her long white dresses embossed with a yellow flower pattern across it.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for a while now,” she told him moodily.
“I… I’m sorry,” Jason stuttered reflexively. Somehow, it seemed to him that he was always apologizing to the women around him.
“It’s not a big deal,” Pam shrugged slightly. “I just wanted to let you know supper’s here. We’ve got pizza tonight for a change.”
“Bring me up a couple of slices if you will, and a drink too,” Jason told her, half smiling.
“Can’t do it,” Pam told him sadly, shaking her head from side to side. “I don’t work here anymore. Your mother fired me because I irritated the chef and he quit today. I’m not allowed to work anymore. You’ll just have to get it yourself.” Turning her back, Pam turned and dashed down the hallway to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Dazed, Jason blinked several times in confusion. Pam didn’t work there anymore? Because of the cook? What? Since when! Was she going to be allowed to keep living there? Not wanting to believing it, he got up and stomped several feet towards the door, before the room suddenly seemed to spin and he found himself staggering and falling to the floor. Hearing the blood pounding furiously in his own ears, he struggled to rise a few times. Struggled to catch his own breath, to try and control his breathing.
In the end, it was too much for him, and he slumped into the deep darkness of unconsciousness, his frail body once again failing to obey his will and wishes.