NOVEL NEXT Chapter 15 - Business of the Game
As the patriarch and head of the household, in this game, I was to supply for my children. Naiad did not like that. She bought her own mount, double the speed than I could afford, and the beast pranced about impatiently at the stable gate. With the money from the boss, I could afford above the common brown horse. I could get stallions for both of us. She purchased a unicorn, and its horn glowed with light magic. It came with a basic light spell that would be helpful at night. I pulled up next to her with my painted stallion in tier one leather armor. I selfishly purchased an orange plume from a bird-of-paradise to go above my horse's head.
"Couldn't afford a unicorn, so you gave your horse a feather?" Naiad joked as she walked around her new mount.
"I like the colors of the bird." I answered. "The bird-of-paradise birds are so proud and pretty. I wanted to spoil myself once. I wish you let me pay you back for the supplies."
Naiad climbed up on her unicorn. It lacked any armor. We would have to protect them in battles. "Think of it as payback for when you bought us supplies. Do we need to go anywhere else? Armor?"
"Nope, once we finish leveling today, we can unlock better gear." I answered.
I trotted out of the stables, looking at the time and figuring out the speed we were going to need to ride to get the most time hunting monsters. Hunting wasn't the only way to level, but when you're an adventurer and a fighter class, you need to fight monsters or be a player killer.
It's a simple choice for me.
"Don't you need a weapon?" She called out to me.
I reined back and turned around. "You're right. Let's not risk the general manager's store. That shield had no durability. Plus, I have something for you."
Taking the lead, I guided her to the player-artisan alley. A player's quality was a gamble to work with, but that's what I was hoping for. Cheap practice weapons and a master who was hungry for a new challenge. For two weeks since public release, I was surprised by how few players had set up shop. A bunch of artists, baked goods, divine blessings, but only one blacksmith and another bowyer sat next to each other in the wide-open area.
The bowyer was a half-elf and half-human, a blue hair under cut, was tall as me and half my weight with how lean he was. While he bent the bow to attach the string, his own muscles threatened to pop out of thin arms.
It deserved an applause as I got off my mount and approached his table. "Been looking for a craftworker of your trade. What's the price of that new bow?"
With a rich accent from Italy, he replied, "Eight hundred, it's a tier four, but I'm still learning. Want it?" He put it down on the table.
Naiad's eyes widen looking at it. It was a simple design, with no decorated carvings or magical runes to boost its price. She put her level one bow down next to it, embarrassed at how pitiful the short bow looked next to the other one. Three levels would give her triple the damage.
"It's great, but I was wondering if we supply the raw material and we can pay you for the labor?" I asked.
The bowyer put his arms on his hips. "I can't make a bow with some crappy sticks you found in the woods."
"Look, uh," I gestured my hand at him and pulled out the limbs of Lady Branchelot from inventory and put them on the table, "I'm sorry. What's your name?"
"Foday. And wow, this is a unique wood. It's heavier than it looks. Not dogwood, what is it?"
"Boss wood." Naiad said.
Foday and the blacksmith woman in the neighboring shop both laughed. I resisted and explained the situation. "We slew this ent yesterday and we're looking for someone to create a nice bow for her."
Foday picked it up with callused hands and pulled out a small chisel to cut off a corner of the bark to see the wood underneath. "Knotty, but we can look and see what's there. What kind of tree were they from?"
I looked at Naiad, hoping she took notes in the chaos.
"It had pines," she answered. "Do you think you can make it a short bow?"
Foday smiled. "Give me two hundred now to cover initial labor. I'd like to see what I can make for this. Likely a compact bow."
He put his hand out to Naiad, but I came over, tapped our thumbs together to complete the transaction the money disappeared over to Foday. "Let me know when it's ready."
"It'll probably be a week." He informed us as the material vanished into his inventory. "Thanks for this, man. I needed new materials to progress my class."
I breathed a sigh of relief. That was one kid getting better gear. I'd spend every penny I had to keep them safe and together. If I could get Tristan an armor bubble shield to walk around in, I would. I had to get more coins and find powerful spells to keep us together so we could handle fights like Lady Branchelot easier.
"I'm willing to do special jobs." the blacksmith stood up straight, her leather apron barely covering the sweat-stained white tunic underneath. Her broad shoulder and muscle were the complete opposite of Foday.
"I don't have any material for that," I said regretfully, but excited to not have to go far to find my weapons. "I'm looking for two axes."
"Gah, was hoping you had something. Like Foday here, I'm stuck in my class quest without any unique materials." The woman said. "Come this way. Lydia's Blacksmithing Shop contains many weapons."
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The weapon racks were half filled, and fortunately a lot of axes were there. There was a distinct lack of swords, daggers, and maces. Only pickaxes, lumber axes, and even a few hammers were on display.
Guilt filled my stomach like when I got baited to follow a covered patio sales agent at the home show when I was only there for hotdogs and pass the time with the kids. "You know, I'm not a lumberjack. I need weapons."
Lydia dived under her table. "Don't worry, I still had a few leftovers from when those Pantheon guys tried to clear house. They also thought they were for woodcutting."
"Wow, you must be rich." Naiad remarked.
Lydia shrugged. "I am, but it's all for naught without materials and my master vanishing."
She pulled out two matching single sided battle axes, with the leather wrap running up and down on the handle to improve the grip. While I inspected them, Foday was sitting at his station fiddling with the wood we gave him.
"Lydia," Foday called over, "are you thinking of switching up professions?"
She groaned loudly, "I don't want to, but I need to find a new class giver for blacksmithing to unlock the higher crafting equipment."
Small talk, the random lore that players gave in order to progress their own relationship connections. I didn't want to be part of it and found what I needed. "These axes will be perfect. How much?"
"Five hundred. Hopefully that will hold me over. I'll give you a discount in the future if you collect materials and find me any material out there." She smiled, the pleading look filling her brown eyes.
"Will do." I transferred the funds and got her contact information, too. Having a blacksmith in the back pocket had its perks, as long as the blacksmith was good.
With the two new battle axes ready, short enough that I had to get close to a monster. I'd slay any monster before they could harm the kids. There was no fletcher on the street, so we had to get Naiad the general market arrows and restock on lesser healing potions and camping gear before heading out. We couldn't afford any more healing scrolls. With my axes, our damage was up at last. We left the store with our pockets lighter, but our inventories fuller.
I walked my horse and the fancy feather through town and out of the city's wall toward Clingeo Grove. Being on a mount, the game looked already different. From my horse, I felt superior to the newbies walking the streets, since running was forbidden and looked suspicious. Guards kept their eyes out for anyone causing issues or riding too fast in the street.
Naiad laughed as she trotted on her horse and did a circle around in the street, waiting for me to catch up. "This is amazing! Is this how real horseback riding is?"
"I've never done it." I answered.
"We totally should!"
"We totally are. This is going to be great. We can do a dad and daughter monster hunting trip. Is there anything you need to hunt first?"
I avoided asking about her quest. I wanted her to tell me about it. She stopped circling as we exited through the gates into the blackened forest.
"I need to find those tracks around the tree." She mumbled finally.
"Tracks!" I cleared my voice to hide my excitement that she finally talked to me. "Uncle Rick taught me on tracking herds down. We can do the same thing in the game. Let's go."
Even above the hooves of our mounts, I heard her say, "Not everything is in the game."
[Guild Chat]
[CheezWiz: What up? I see and hear Triangle working hard in the shop again. Are you going to stream the details of your quest?]
[Boulder: I'm not streaming until we get to a higher level. Plus, I want to keep the starting part of the quest secret.]
[CheezWiz: Oh, come on, include me in at least.]
[Boulder: We slayed an ent guarding something in the woods.]
[CheezWiz: Hmm, I slew an ent near Pavlova, but never got a quest.]
[Boulder: I'll see if we can find more clues.]
The moment we cleared the walls of Fanamel, I forced us to pick up speed to get where we marked our maps earlier to find the tracks of the fight. As a precaution, we put our mounts away while still in a safe zone, the one-hour timer appearing our summoning scrolls to prevent us from summoning them again instantly. That gave us plenty of time to level up and finish her quest.
Naiad's finger traced over the tracks that dug into the dirt. The widths were larger than my shoe size.
"The tracks belonged to a padded creature." I pointed to what I knew of the fauna. "The shape of the paw is round and one solid piece, compared to a high-speed creature, say a dog. If you look at their step pattern, you will also notice the lack of indents for claws indents."
As I talked about this information out loud, my stat in tracking went up to account for the skill and my actual application of it. Naiad traced her finger on the various pads near the base of the tree. We were not near any man-made road, but I couldn't tell if we were on a deer trail in the burned forest.
"And it's not hooved, either. What kind of animal makes this track?" Her finger outlined the other track.
"Hmm, not sure in this fantasy game." I answered. "If you glance at the hooves tracks made by our mounts, even the unicorn has different hoofprints than my horse. Our mounts are built for speed and distance. A soft large pad like this? Maybe an herbivorous dinosaur?"
I doubted my answer, looking at the claw marks left on the tree. A digging bug eater was less likely.
She snorted at my response. "There are no dinosaurs in this game. Let's try to follow the tracks. With this indent, it seems to have gone that way."
Naiad stood up and walked around, and paused shortly after. "I don't see anymore. It's like they flew up in the air."
"Flying can be a track in itself, like making angel wings in the snow. See anything around like that?" It was nice to pass on some knowledge I gained during my hunting and camping days. "Though this is pretty hard to track with everything blowing around. With how solid those footprints were, we are probably dealing with something heavy."
"Oh! I found more!" She said, she jogged along, running over to a bare tree and burned bush area. "It's like you said that the creature is heavy. I should look for low spots. It went around this black rock. Ah, this is like a fun puzzle and hide and seek game. I wonder what we're going to find."
"So we're treasure hunting?" I suggested up the term.
"I guess as long I keep practicing looking for the monster according to the quest. It doesn't mention hunting."
"So, we don't have to wait around for a time?" I slipped and brought up the original problem.
She didn't reply. It was too soon to be making that kind of remark. We went around the giant bolder, which showed signs of a beast rubbing up against it and smeared blood dripped down near the bottom of the lumpy stone. Naiad bit her lip and glanced around before whispering, "There are multiple tracks. I thought you said this was an herbivore!"
"I'm assuming the other tracks are a carnivore then, there are two of them. Let's go hunting and level up!" I responded quietly. We were spending a lot of time looking for tracks and needed experience. "How many more tracks do you need for your quest?"
"Two more."
"You could've finished yesterday." I raised my voice to normal.
"Shh," she hissed back at me.
"You don't tell me to hush." I whispered back.
She pulled out her bow and notched an arrow. I pulled out my axes from my sides. They glistened in the light. They felt better than when I used the flaming branches yesterday to defeat the Rat King. On high alert, I glanced around at the tracks. I couldn't tell what happened. It looked no different from when Tristan played with his giant dump truck and dug in the dirt.
Something with claws? The padded footprints around ruined it, countered that point of an herbivore. There was something more to this. A scuffle between two beasts.
Naiad took the lead, staying low and constantly looking up at the sky. We got only a few trees away from the tracks when a screech cried from above. A giant vulture dove toward us, gaining speed fast.
Positioned in the charred forest, Naiad stood completely exposed, her bow aimed at the bird.