Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

'Hello,' Archie signed as he stepped into Synth & Stitch, the renowned leathersmith shop in Neo-Eden, highlighted in 'Noteworthy Places and Hidden Corners on Fractal' as the best place in the city for leather armor and other useful leather knick-knacks.

Which, considering there were only four such shops in all of Neo-Eden, probably wasn't saying much… but still, a win was a win, he supposed.

The human from behind the counter barely gave Archie more than a glance before his green irised cybernetic eyes went back to the notepad he was jotting back down in.

"Just a moment, in a call - and sorry, I don't know the sign language you're using," the cybernetic human said dully, his attention fixed on jotting down orders being transmitted to him through his Aetherglass.

Lingering a bit at the front desk, Archie eventually decided to cut his losses, opting not to wait for the man to finish jotting down whatever long order he was receiving, and wandered off to explore the spatially expanded shop on his own.

Scanning through the rows of leather armor displays, neatly arranged along floating platforms and enchanted racks that slowly rotated to showcase their craftsmanship. The scent of tanned hide and alchemical oils hung thick in the air, mingling with the subtle hum of magical reinforcement wards woven into the walls.

The scent of alchemical oils reminded him of the alchemist's shop he'd stumbled into earlier, after half an hour of aimlessly wandering to find Synth & Stitch.

After waving goodbye to Aoife and Tim, he told them where they could find him once he left the city - somewhere tucked behind or within one of the many hills about ninety kilometers west of Neo-Eden.

It was the same stretch of hills they had used as a shortcut in and out of the city. Tim had claimed it would lead them into the Tanglebloom Forest - it wouldn't have; he checked the map of the surrounding territories of Neo-Eden.

Either way, when he stumbled into the alchemy shop - originally just to ask for directions to Synth & Stitch - he ended up buying four Vials of Fatigue Relief. Expensive things, they were, four Silver coins for each one.

After injecting one of the Fatigue Relief vials into the side of his neck, he nearly stumbled face-first into the ground as the crushing weight, like a mountain pressing on both his back and mind, vanished in an instant.

It took him a few moments to gather his bearings after suddenly being able to move and think without the oppressive weight of weeks' worth of creeping fatigue, brought on by both escaping the Netharim Sovereignty with Aoife and the lingering effects of the curse, Hollow Slumber.

Pulling himself out of his musings with a blink, Archie found himself in front of a mannequin of a humanoid, draped in a cool, snazzy-looking overcoat made out of Ironbelly Porcupine hide.

The material had a nice, rugged texture to it, and its enchantments were woven directly into the overcoat, offering elemental and mana resistance. Functional, stylish, and probably overpriced.

Yup, definitely overpriced, Archie thought to himself as he grimaced slightly, seeing that 80 Silver coin price tag on it. Then again, it might be because it's made for D-Grades, he mused, gently brushing his fingers along the sleeve.

He continued deeper, stepping around a rack of reinforced bracers and enchanted utility belts. Oh yeah, I still need belts for my armor, Archie remembered, veering off toward one of the bins. He grabbed a few of the unenchanted ones - nothing fancy, just solid make and clean stitching.

Glancing down at the small bundle in his hands, he tilted his head, weighing the quality. Then, with a soft sigh, he gave a small shrug. It's not enough… but it'll do for now.

As he walked around the shop, he reached a section near the back that was cordoned off with soft light, clearly marked for 'Custom Requests & Artificed Goods.' Curious, he stepped closer.

"Hey!" came a voice - this one sharp, younger, distinctly unimpressed and grumpy. A halfling, goggles pushed up onto a mop of silver-streaked hair, poked her head out from behind a tanner's apron, stained with alchemical oils and dye. "That area's for commissions only. You touching anything back there, tallboy?"

Archie raised both hands, chuckling silently, and signed: 'Just browsing. Promise I wasn't going to touch.'

"Then what's that right there in your hand?" she demanded, one hand on her hip while the other pointed at his left hand holding the belts. "Them's display belts."

Oh, Archie thought. 'I didn't know, my bad. I thought the stuff in the bin by the displays were things you could take to the register.'

The halfling gave Archie an appraising look before glancing past him, toward the direction he came from, and then toward the front register. "Must've been that chicken-legged councilman's yearly delivery if it had him dropping everything to pick up the phone," she muttered under her breath, arms crossed, before she turned back toward Archie.

She turned back to Archie, squinting up at him like she was trying to figure out if he was going to be more trouble than he was worth. "I'll trust you, just toss them back where you found them before you leave."

Nodding, Archie then asked her a question. 'Are you, well, is the store still taking commissions or…'

"We do," the halfling said, eyeing Archie up and down. "You want a full set?"

'No, not for armor - just a couple of things,' Archie signed, before conjuring mana constructs that floated above his palms, plain, but solid.

The constructs included a pair of wheels, a satchel large enough to hold the Spirit Nucleus, a pair of boots, and a crate full of belts and leather straps.

The halfling raised a brow as the shimmering mana constructs formed above Archie's palms, her gaze flicking between each floating item with a growing look of intrigue.

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She noticed faint twitching at the edges of the construct with her Perception, but didn't let it show on her face - if anything, it made her impression of him sharpen with interest. She hadn't heard of a physical fighter being able to use mana constructs this smoothly at E-Grade.

'The satchel needs to be large and wide enough to hold a sphere the size of sevenish, maybe eight Beastcores, and durable enough to the point where I can have it on me at all times, I travel a lot,' Archie wrote out. 'The boots just need to fit my feet and be durable, nothing else.'

The leather boots were only meant to serve as a base for the next pair he planned to craft. His current boots were on their last legs - worn thin at the soles that popped out from their metal casing, with frayed stitching and patches barely holding them together after everything he'd been through. Self-Repair killed itself from how often it had to repair these boots.

'The wheels… Can you make wheels? And have them function like rubber? And not leave behind tracks,' he asked, suddenly realizing that a leathersmith might not be able to make tires.

To be fair, the only crafting classes he'd seen so far were leathersmiths, alchemists, and blacksmiths like himself.

Oh well, if there isn't, I'll just see if there's some kind of tiresmith or something in the city. He'd spotted tires on a few vehicles around town, but they were on average either far too big or absurdly small to ever fit his Mana Bike, which meant he had to purchase custom ones.

"I can do tires," the halfling nodded. "I still have quite a bit of reinforced rubber left over from a previous commission, but what's the size you need?"

As Archie sent his mana into his spatial ring, the halfling's eyes stayed locked on his movements, her gaze sharp but unreadable.

Unbeknownst to him, the building's sensor and array wards were quietly tracking every fluctuation of his mana signature, logging his presence, casting patterns, and even his heartbeat - standard protocol for high-end shops in Neo-Eden, especially ones dealing with those whom they suspected of being a thief and saboteur - such as Archie.

'This is the tire wheel I'm working with,' Archie signed, handing the halfling a rough, hand-forged model he'd crafted the night before he and Aoife met Tim.

The wheel was made from a metal alloy Archie had smelted himself - steel mixed with Cold Iron - giving it a faint sheen that caught the shop's lighting oddly, lighting the side of Archie's face a faint ice blue sheen.

Its design was simple but solid: four thick, properly welded spokes connected the center cap to the rim, with five lug holes spaced out in a pentagon.

There was no valve stem or lugs yet - it wasn't meant to be functional, just a physical prototype. At 8 inches wide and 23 inches across, the wheel was larger than what you'd typically see on a dirt bike. But given the speeds Archie could push his Mana Bike to, he needed something sturdier.

Every time he braked with the sawblade wheels on, the teeth would end up completely rounded out by the end of the journey, unless he constantly Self-Repaired it while driving.

"You need two?" the halfling asked, running her cybernetic, needle-and-thread-like fingers across the rim of the tire wheel. "I can get these done in thirty minutes, and I'll grab the rest of what you're looking for from storage - if you don't mind waiting a bit."

'How much would it all be?' Archie asked, crossing his arms and setting his expression into a stony mask the moment he saw the devilish grin spread across the halfling's face.

"Oh, don't give me that look," the halfling chuckled, her mechanical fingers already tapping away at the calculator she pulled out from her apron. "You're not the first tinkerer to walk in here trying to play the stoic card."

She looked up from the device, one eyebrow arched. "Two custom-made elemental resistant tires that fit in your tire wheel, one pair of plain leather boots, a custom satchel for that thing that you're lugging around that looks like it's about to burst from your… satchel, and enough leather straps to restrain a rampaging Bullsnake?"

She tapped a final time and turned the display toward him.

"One hundred and seventy-three Silver," she stated flatly.

Archie blinked. Once. Twice.

Then, without a word, he reached out, grabbed the tire wheel model from her cybernetic hands, and turned on his heel, his steps calm as he made his way back through the aisle, intent on both leaving the shop and returning the belts.

He was halfway down the aisle, his poker face still on, when he heard her voice cut through the silence.

"Alright, fine! One-fifty! And I'll throw in the satchel reinforcement for free!"

Archie stopped, slowly tilting his head upwards, the corner of his lips curling into a devilish grin.

Thus, begins Step 2 of the Art of Haggling, Archie thought, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, just for a second, before his expression flattened into an unreadable poker face.

"Eighty Silver coins," Archie calmly said.

"Eighty?" the halfling loudly sputtered. "You think I'm some half-wit fool because I'm a halfling, don't ya?... One-forty-five!"

"Couldn't have landed any softer," Noor complained, nursing her bruised tailbone as she pushed herself from atop the dust-covered stone. "System or not, I'm just as clumsy always."

Her voice echoed through the crypt's long-forgotten halls, bouncing off walls lined with shattered urns and bones so old they practically crumbled at the sight of movement.

Somewhere above her, she heard a muffled clatter. Probably another skeleton tripping over its own damn femur… again.

With a sigh that carried untold amounts of frustration, Noor stood, brushing off the mud and dust that clung to her rose gold-colored robes. A brittle chunk of someone's rib cage clung stubbornly to the hem.

She plucked it off with two fingers, giving it a withering look before glancing upward. Seven skulls peered back down through the jagged hole in the crypt ceiling, bone jaws clacking softly in concern.

"I'm fine," she huffed, softer now, cradling her bruised ego more than the tailbone. "I should've listened to you lot and looked for another entrance instead of trusting a bundle of mossy vines strung together like a druid's bad idea of a ladder."

The skeletons chittered at each other in what might've been smug agreement. She squinted at them.

"Don't start."

One of them gave an exaggerated shrug, which was impressive considering it was missing its left scapula.

"Anyways, jump down here!" Noor shouted up, stepping aside to give them room. "It's not that far - and what's the worst that could happen? You don't have an ass like me!"

The first skeleton flung itself down immediately, landing in a heap of clattering bones before promptly reassembling itself like a morbid children's toy. The others followed one by one, each landing more haphazardly than the last.

Once they were all on their feet - more or less - Noor dusted her hands off and looked down the corridor stretching ahead, tossing the chunk of bone she found on her hem toward the second-to-last skeleton that formed.

"Well," she muttered, summoning a flickering light blue wisp of Ghost Flame that hovered beside her, "let's find out if this Staff of Strife, or whatever it's called, is worth bruising my tailbone over, shall we?"

With a bit of help from her skeleton soldiers, she pushed open one of the larger-looking stone sarcophagi beside her, revealing the skeletal remains of three humanoids. Noor stared at the undead remains of three distinct humanoids, eyes wide and unblinking, before rapidly blinking and mentally muttering, Nope.

"I don't know why, I'm not even gonna ask, and I'm just gonna move on," she muttered, as necrotic mana curled from her other hand like smoke. She funneled it into the heap, her breath syncing with the rhythmic pulse of her magic.

"Raise Undead."

The bones rattled violently before snapping together with sickening precision, forming a skittering cluster of skeletal scorpions - seven in all. Their tails twitched with magical venom, mandibles clicking in anticipation. Two long, bleached serpent spines slithered from the shadows to coil protectively at her feet, and last came a spindly imp, stitched together from whatever was left over and looking none too pleased about it.

"Charming," Noor muttered, raising a brow at the imp's scowl.

One of the skeletons gave her a thumbs up. Another tried to do the same and accidentally sent its thumb flying into the darkness.

"...I'll take that as a yes."