An Unwavering Craftsman

"If you're looking for work..." started Edward, but Damien held up a hand to cut him off.

"No, I'm here for advice. Obviously, I need to get some levels under my belt, and with my parents' occupation, I can get my hands on high tier materials easily enough. I just need to decide what to make to most efficiently use my time and materials."

Edward remained silent as he worked through the implications. "Of course, at tier one, the only skill you'll have is [Tailoring]. You don't need the skill to consider any of your attempts successes, because you don't have extra support skills to train. And with your parents' resources... Wait, if you wanted a challenge, isn't getting all your resources from your parents cheating?"

"Hey, I've spent seventeen years being a good kid to them, thank you very much," answered Damien, doing his best to hide how close that hit to his own earlier thoughts. "There's a difference between parents wanting to help their child and accepting a blessing from a stranger that could just as easily have gone to anyone."

"Aren't we all like children to the Five? I mean, Gaia is named the Mother."

"Then they shouldn't play favourites," Damien said with a shrug. "Anyway, I'm not here to complain about the way they do things. They're gods, and I'm mortal. I assume there's a reason for their behaviour, even if I can't understand it."

Edward shuffled uncomfortably in response to how close the conversation was getting to heresy and decided to take Damien's offer to drop it. "Well, to get back to your question, if you have a limited amount of material, I'd recommend Ergland-style bracelets. Tier seven and ridiculously intricate, but they're small, reasonably quick to make for their tier and require very little material. You could maybe do one a day without the support skills, once you get into it. If you stop caring about material efficiency, a good trick is to make a regular dress, then use up at least double the material adding decoration. That'll automatically upgrade it from a tier two 'simple dress' to a tier four 'extravagant dress', even if the decorations you add are completely impractical. You're supposed to add ruffles and frills and whatnot, but in practice, you can literally take a bolt of cloth, sew both ends to the dress, and it'll count."

Damien poked his level one skill, unsurprised to find it offered no clues as to what an Ergland-style bracelet was supposed to look like, or how a bracelet could possibly take an entire day to sew. He'd need to look it up in the library at some point. The dress trick was nice to know, though. Doubling the tier in exchange for tripling the material costs didn't sound like a great exchange, but the time required to cut a length of cloth and sew both ends would be an order of magnitude less than creating something [Tailoring] would acknowledge as a dress. It would be a decent time saver. He could probably turn one of those out every couple of hours, so a better total rate of experience than the bracelets, at the cost of far more material.

He foresaw a lot of children's dresses in his future. None of which would be wearable... What a waste. Some of the material would be reusable, but not all of it.

"Thanks for the advice. I can look the rest up in the library."

"No problem—your family brings me enough business that I don't mind stopping to chat for a few minutes. And good luck. I don't know what you're planning, but knowing your family, I'm expecting fireworks."

Damien waved to Lucy, who was desperately trying to unruffle her dress following her fall, and left the store, the bell tinkling behind him.

Between the ceremony of paths in the morning, the following appraisal, hours of research and the trip here, there wasn't time to visit the library. The source-lights were beginning to wane, signalling the end of the working day, and even if the place was open when he arrived, there was very little chance of him finding the information he sought before it closed. There wasn't really anything to do at home, though. Perhaps Grace would have a needle or two lying around, but it would take more than that to make anything worth a useful amount of experience. It would certainly take more than that to deal with dragon materials. Damien grinned to himself at the thought of turning the ton of adamantite into needles, scissors and pins. The look on Shigeo's face would be priceless.

No shop would stock a full set of tailoring tools; the market for them was simply too small. Who would make clothes at home when they would be so inferior to those made by anyone with a proper tailoring class? It was a different matter to food; people needed to eat every day, but a good item of clothing would last for years. Made by a tailor with a decent durability feat, they would effectively last forever. The only concern was children growing out of them. It was far more feasible to not home-make clothes than it was not to cook, and only the richest ate out every meal, or employed someone with a cooking class.

That meant needing to commission a set of tools from a smith. Damien had never needed to order anything from a smith before, but his parents were regulars, and he'd tagged along often enough to be on friendly terms with a massive, muscular bear of a man by the name of George. With a thick beard long enough to tuck into his belt, he could almost be accused of doing a dwarf impression, if not for his very un-dwarfish height. Not that anyone would notice; dwarves hadn't been seen anywhere in the bowl since the war of the rifts, and were assumed extinct, so few people knew what they looked like.

He was a tier five [Expert Weaponsmith], and hence his skills worked only on weapons, but Damien knew that wouldn't stop him fulfilling the bulk of his order. You could do a lot of damage to someone with a needle, if you aimed well. Frankly, that was true of any sufficiently heavy lump of metal, whatever shape it was in; a lack of sharp edges did nothing to prevent bashing someone over the head with it. Anything his skills flat-out wouldn't cooperate with could be left to his apprentice, a tier four [Adept Blacksmith].

While he tended to work late, and would probably still be around by the time Damien arrived, his forge was, unfortunately, far away from the seafront, in the northeastern section of town. Damien made his way along the main road east, away from the busy port, through a more residential area, and out into the town centre. The central plaza had been completely cleared of all evidence of the day's earlier activity, the ritual circle erased and the stage dismantled and removed. With all registrations complete, even the tents set up behind it had gone. The team of priests and appraisers had likely already left, on their way to perform the ritual in another town or city in the next day or two.

The plaza was by no means empty, but the crowds of earlier had long since departed, and there were no masses to fight through to turn north. The only downside of the route was that the street contained temples to the Five. Separate temples. Five of them, all in a neat line on the western side of the road. With Damien not in the best of moods towards the bowl's deities, but unwilling to avoid them, he marched along the road doing his best to keep his expression neutral.

"Oh? And does a marquess outrank the Mother?" came a voice to his left, causing Damien to pause and look. A priestess was standing in the doorway of Gaia's temple, looking highly irate. Standing in front of her was someone in neat, black clothing, his back to Damien. He obviously responded, but while the priestess was able to hear him clearly, Damien heard nothing. Some sort of privacy feat?

"No. As a priestess of Gaia, my lips will spread truth, not slander and lies. Be gone, and may the Five turn from you for your disrespect." Another pause, presumably as the man started pleading his case once more, before the priestess interrupted. "I said be gone!"

This time he seemed to take the hint, turning around and coming face to face with Damien.

What business would a marquess' servant have at the town's temple? One that was classed for it, and had specialised feats, even? Damien thought there was a good chance it was related to recent problematic rumours. The priestess would know they were deliberately misleading, given that his parents had made a sizeable donation here sometime after returning from their dragon fight, but before the ceremony of paths. His confidence was increased even more when he recognised the face as one that had been on the stage earlier that day, and the hastily masked look of surprise as he saw Damien all but confirmed it.

That narrowed down their problem to a marquess. There were only five people in Hrellflan who could claim that title. No wonder the Earl had clammed up, having been outranked. But how to narrow it down further, preferably to one? Alas, the servant wasn't doing something as convenient as openly wearing an insignia. It was likely he hadn't given the priestess the full name of his master, so Damien considered how best to extract it in the few seconds he had.

Of the five marquess in the kingdom, Lord Herriton had an impeccable reputation. He wouldn't pull a stunt like this. Nor would Lord Langhyme, who held territory to the west of the capital. He could be unscrupulous at times, but was far too religious to involve the Five in his schemes. Lord Cryscrin was tier eight himself, and had enough loyal retainers under him that he didn't need to take risks to acquire more.

That left Lords Dwilerp and Sallownwyn. Neither had a great reputation, and both were known to use coercion and other unscrupulous means to expand their influence. The only difference between them was that Sallownwyn's territory was along the east coast, while Dwilerp's directly bordered that of Lord Gretton on the northern side. Damien deemed him the most likely perpetrator simply on the basis of proximity.

"Wow, is Lord Dwilerp really that desperate?" asked Damien, as jovially as he could manage. This time, the twitch on the servant's face was impossible to miss, confirming Damien's guess was correct.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, if you'll excuse me."

"You might want some sort of emotionless feat to go along with your privacy one," commented Damien to the servant's retreating back. He didn't respond. "Thanks, and sorry for the trouble," he said to the priestess.

"You're welcome, and thank you for revealing that swindler's master. There will certainly be repercussions from this."

Damien bowed his head politely and resumed his walk up the street. Just because he found the Five incomprehensible had never meant he failed to show the proper respect.

By the time he reached George's smithy, the furnace was out and both master and apprentice were busy packing away.

"Oh, if it isn't Damien," said George, handing an armful of stuff to his apprentice and wandering over. "What can I do for you? Here to commission your first sword?"

"I don't think I'll be needing any weapons, sorry."

"Pah," spat George. "Don't rely on some fancy weapon from the capital. Build up your skills properly."

Damien blinked, not having expected George to get the wrong end of the stick. The thought that Damien didn't have a combat class had apparently not even occurred to him.

"No, I don't need any weapons, from anyone. I have a crafting class."

"You what? You're pulling my leg. The kid of Shigeo ended up with a crafting class?"

"Hey, it's a bit hypocritical of you to knock crafting classes, isn't it?"

"I'm not knocking them... I just... Wow. So, what did you want?"

"Tailoring equipment, a full set. And then a second set of everything pointy or bladed in adamantite."

"... Okay, I take that back. Adamantite sewing needles? Yup, you're Shigeo's kid after all. What sort of class did you end up with that needs that?"

"[Neophyte Tailor]."

George stared. "Okay, what am I missing here? Neophyte means first tier, right?"

"Right."

"And you want adamantite equipment?"

"Right."

"Why?"

Damien grinned wryly at his newfound ability to break people just by telling them his class. Maybe there was some sort of hidden skill for it? "You ever tried poking dragon-leather with a steel needle?"

"I haven't tried poking any part of a dragon with anything! Why in the hells would... Wait, you mean that dragon your parents took down? Do you have any idea what a real craftsman could do with that? Heck, even I wouldn't dare touch it. Please don't waste it like that! That's practically sacrilege!"

"I asked the Five for a challenge and this is what I got," snapped Damien, angered by the implication of not being a 'real' craftsman, but not forgetting to spread his cover story. "My parents hunted that dragon, and what they do with it is up to them, not you or me. If they want to use it to help me, that's their choice. You know what, maybe I'll get my fancy capital needles from Hrellisti after all. Forget my order."

Damien turned and stormed off, drawing a hurried, "Wait, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," from George, who suddenly realised his chances of working with adamantite were walking away from him. Damien didn't wait, starting the walk back home in a bad mood. There were plenty of other smiths in the town, and while he might need someone high-tier to work adamantite, he could get his first set from anyone.

With the streets emptying themselves for the evening, it was a quiet stroll back to the family house. On reflection, he decided it hadn't actually been a bad outing. The general public had been staring, but more out of interest than judgement. Edward had been supportive. The priestess of Gaia had been on his side, despite that black-clad man doubtless informing her of his class. And that black-clad man himself, the servant of Lord Dwilerp, had let slip information that Shigeo would find very interesting. Even George had only been upset about the dragon, and not at Damien himself.

He was in a far better mood by the time he opened his front door, revealing Shigeo pacing the entranceway.

"Finally. I was about to go looking for you!"

"Huh? Dad? What's wrong?"

"You! How long did it take you to visit Edward? We were getting worried."

"I went to visit George to order some tools, too. Although I ended up not bothering."

"Don't you think you should have told us first?"

"You've never been worried about me walking around town on my own before. I'm not going to hide at home, refusing to go out forever."

"We aren't saying you can't leave," said Fleta, walking out of the reception room with Grace, who handed a glass of wine to Shigeo. "Just be sure to let someone know where you are. I've left the requests at the guild, by the way. The dismantler will be here next week, and if anyone with your classes of interest try looking for work at any guild branch in the kingdom, they'll direct them our way."

"Equipment is a good point. I keep forgetting that just because you don't need weapons or armour doesn't mean you don't need anything. Forget any of the local smiths; I'll pop to Hrellisti and get you the best."

Damien grinned. "As if you aren't spoiling me enough already. I don't need super high-end stuff. Just find someone who can work adamantite."

Shigeo paused as the pieces clicked together in his head. "Hah! An adamantite sewing kit! If only that golem knew what its fate was going to be, it would have turned around and marched back into the sea!"

"I'm fairly sure golems are incapable of shame or embarrassment," pointed out Damien.

"Let your dad enjoy his daydreams, dear. Anything else of interest happen while you were out?"

"Oh, yeah. I found out who was responsible for those rumours. Marquess Dwilerp."

A crack from Shigeo as the glass shattered in his hand suggested that Damien had, in fact, spoilt his daydreams. A sigh from Grace suggested that he'd also spoilt the carpet.