You have such great desires and goals,

but they all amount for naught.

They are, in the end, nothing but self-serving

lip service.

The deranged ramblings of a child in denial.

A lie.

Something you tell yourself so you can sleep at night.

If only your party members knew

After all…

Crimson didn’t have to go far to meet up with Verity, she was on her way out of the library at the same time he was. They met up and headed to the weapon shop.

It wasn’t far from the guildhouse and it was more or less what could be expected from a traditional fantasy weapon shop. There were racks on the walls holding a large variety of weapons: spears, axes, swords, and evens some exotic ones, like kusarigama. There were tables in the room with a similar assortment laid out haphazardly on top, finally, in the corner, there were barrels with bargain bin weapons.

At a glance Crimson could tell that there were sticks on the side of the road with better quality, and he didn’t have any practice in identifying weapons. Well, it wasn’t hard to tell a weapon was in bad shape when he could see the cracks in it from across the room. Unfortunately, given his nature, he had to thoroughly checked out those bins in the hopes that he’d find a hidden magic sword of some kind, but no dice. He talked to the clerk and learned that those swords were sold by blacksmith apprentices, or were already used by owners who didn’t know anything about weapon maintenance.

The funny thing about the shoddy weapons was that, despite the cracks, they could actually hold out better than they looked, better than modern weapons in the same shape. They were actually usable in a fight so long as the durability hung on for dear life, it was really just the attack value that suffered. Fortunately, the barrels of garbage weren’t representative of the whole stock. He completely dismissed everything in the barrels with out a second thought. It wasn’t a hard decision, there was even a Greatsword leaning next to the barrel that was more cracks than sword, and cost less than a cheap meal at a mid class restaurant.

The swords in the middle of the room, on the tables, were all decent. Quite frankly: middle of the road. They were the stuff that reasonably skilled apprentices made and sold, or they were used weapons that were actually taken care of by the previous owner. There were a few in that pile that Crimson was actually considering with some degree of seriousness, but he decided to put those ones on hold to check the ones on the walls.

These weapons were all made by blacksmiths and craftsmen that had completed an apprenticeship, or -rarely- by a talented apprentice. None of these swords were pre-owned in any way, shape, or form. Crimson made a mental note of two katanas on the wall and checked out the last group of weapons in the room: the ones in glass cases at the counter, and the ones hanging on locked rack behind the counter.

These weapons were made by blacksmiths who were at or near master level, or weapons that had such unique effects that it drove their price through the roof. There was one such weapon in the form of a morning star that had the ability to send enemies flying, but didn’t deal much damage. He wasn’t interested in it, but the thought of a giant troll flying through the air with a confused look was slightly amusing.

He was forced to disregard the other weapons and looked more closely at the different katanas.

BORING!!! The Slave Driver made the best kind of shopping trip, the one for weapons, BORING. Verity had seen all kinds of shopping trips before, she remembered seeing one man weeping openly during a shopping trip with his girlfriend because of how long it had drug on, and she felt empathy for him!

Crimson was way too meticulous! He started with the garbage weapons, the ones that would probably be disposed of sometime next week, and thoroughly checked them over! He looked at every type of weapon, even the ones he didn’t need! The shopping clerk was a big beefy man who looked like what a dwarf would if it grew three feet, and he was nearly in tears from how many questions Crimson had asked him.

He had more or less lost his voice when another employee came in and bailed him out, and Verity swore that Crimson -The Slave Driver- never even noticed! He was worse to shop with than anyone else…*sigh*

On a small level Verity could empathize with him in this situation, picking a weapon is a serious matter, one that should never be taken lightly. To give an extreme example of how important it is: she’d once overheard another adventurer state that he put more effort into picking his weapon, than he did his wife. First: they were very happily married, second: his party members had actually applauded him, his wife applauded with them. She was there!

Well, that was the only level that she could understand when it came to Crimson’s weapon shopping. There was absolutely no need to browse through the weapons that even Crimson himself knew that he wouldn’t buy, but of course he would check, and ask about EVERY. SINGLE. ONE! Verity knew that he’d decided to get a katana that day, so why was he looking at spears too?!?! He even inspected a great club -bigger than him- with the seriousness of an actual buyer!

Why???

Why???

WHY???

She actually started fantasizing about using the morning star he was looking at to slop her brains all over the floor when he walked back over to her, and called a break.

A BREAK????

It was at least three hours past noon, and he just wanted to take a break!

“NO, we are not leaving here until you have picked a weapon. JUST PICK ONE!!!”

The employee standing behind him nodded emphatically as his emaciated body was filled with the light of hope, and Crimson didn’t notice.

“Why are you screaming at me? I thought you’d want lunch by now?”

“JUST DO IT NOW SO WE DON’T HAVE TO COME BACK!!!”

“Alright then.”

Just what was wrong with Verity? She started screaming at him out of nowhere. Well, it didn’t matter, he’d learned quite a bit about the standards of weapons in his time looking at all the shop had on offer, it was an excellent way for him to kill two birds with one stone.

Skill Level Up!

[Memorization II] > [Memorization III]

Too bad, there weren’t any bonuses for this level up. That just meant that he’d get one the next time. He’d also learned something important about the skill, two important things as a matter of fact. First: it was a tier two skill. Second: it only helped with memorizing stuff, remembering stuff afterwords wasn’t perfect. In other words: while his memory was good, he tried to remember too much in a short period of time, and so some of what he’d memorized slipped through the cracks.

If he wanted to remember it all he’d probably need the [Memory] skill.

At one point during the whole process the clerks had swapped, which was a good thing. The first guy seemed to have some kind of cold, and was losing his voice. The second guy appeared to have caught it too, as his voice started going out too. IF he had thought about the cause a bit more, he might have realized how much taking he’d forced them to do, instead of the casual conclusion he reached without much -‘any’- thought.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to worry about that two much, he’d narrowed his choices down two three: a Lv.1 [Honor’s Weight], a Lv.1 [Broken Righteousness], and a Lv.1 [Wayfarer’s Companion].

The first looked like it belonged on some chivalrous knight or annoying cliched noble, it was an elegant and gaudy thing that he couldn’t describe as anything but, ‘mildly usable’, and the cost was way too high for it’s performance. The only real reason he considered it for was the fact that it had a special skill that reduced the rate that it’s durability decreased. Interesting? Yes. Worth it? Not to anyone who understood the concept of ‘money’.

[Broken Righteousness] had a really interesting design, it looked almost like it had been splattered in blood, and there was a design on the blade that made it look like someone had taken the shattered remnants of a blade and pushed them together. Really cool, had some interestingly high damage too, but the price didn’t make it worth it, and with Crimson’s fighting style it would do less damage than the [Wayfarer’s Companion].

The [Wayfarer’s Companion] did less base damage, but it had an ability that had a slight bonus to AGI, and it was lighter than [Broken Righteousness]. That combination made it far more suited to Crimson than the other two, even if they were better blades. He mentally decided to call it [WC] for short.

[WC] was definitely the most plain looking of the three blades. The sheath and grip lacked any decoration, and were a simple white color. The tsuba was just a simple piece of steel as well but, that was only at a glance. Once he’d started look closer he noticed how much effort went into the piece, while it lacked the gaudiness of the first blade, or the coolness of the second, it carried a quiet dignity that the other two couldn’t match, and that all didn’t even mention the blade.

If he had to describe the blade in a word it was…artful. While the western style swords on display lacked a sheath, all the katanas had theirs. The difference was probably due to the fact that the sheath mattered more for proper use of a katana, than it did for a longsword or the like. This lead to a master level blade being hidden in plain sight. Well, only the quality of the blade was master level, everything else was just really good.

After taking a close look at his final three it was quite obvious that the [Wayfarer’s Companion] was the best option, as a side note it had the best durability stat of the bunch, but [Broken Righteousness] wasn’t far behind on that one, just a few points. [Honor’s Weight] had a durability less than half of [BR], so even if it halved the durability decrease by half, it didn’t win as far as durability goes.

Looking at the price made Crimson scream and cry bloody tears internally, 995 Gold! He knew it would be high, but that high? It was truly agonizing for him to fork over the requested amount. So, he haggled the price down to 783 Gold, which took him over an hour’s worth of arguing! Both he, and the shop keeper, were completely out of breath by the time it was done, and anyone watching would only have seen two people politely chatting with smiles on their faces, while a certain Elf was hitting her head on the counter for some weird reason.

Crimson quickly stuck his new katana and it’s sheath in his inventory, carrying a sword like that in the open around town would only attract trouble, then he bought a set of small knives for back up weapons, just in case. They were plain things, and they were as long as his forearm from tip to pommel. They also lacked the elegance of his [WC], so they only cost him 10 gold a knife, for a total of four.

After that, he and Verity -who had a massive bruise on her forehead that she healed with magic- headed to the armor shop. The process of buying armor was quite a bit smoother than buying a weapon for him. All the leather armor available in stock was actually made by the owner and his daughter, and because of that the quality was consistently good. Looking closely at a few pieces while waiting for the shopkeeper he could tell that they outsourced for the plate armor, chain mail, and gambesons.

After a short wait he was fitted with some good quality leather armor that was pretty light and didn’t hinder his joint movement at all. This was truly a fantasy world, there was just no way on earth to produce armor that didn’t affect movement. True, the weight was still a factor, but it wasn’t on the level where it was truly a concern with this set.

The price was also pretty reasonable, and he walked away with 500 less Gold coins in his pocket. Hopefully this armor would last for a while. It was a good thing Raften had given him 2000 Gold, else he would only have been able to buy a sword, and going into a dungeon without any protection was not a pleasing thought.

As he walked out of the shop he noticed that Verity was dragging her feet and acting forlorn,

“What’s wrong?”

“You said we were going to eat after you bought a weapon.”

Ah, he did say that, he had forgotten…she was really taking this pretty hard huh? She looked like a beaten puppy, and not a grown woman.

“Sorry, I forgot, let’s go get something to eat.”

“You’re buying.”

“I refuse. You have enough money to pay for yourself.”

“It’s the principle of making a lady wait!”

…

…

…

It was at that moment that Crimson realized how well his parents had trained him.

“Fine, we’re going somewhere cheap to eat then.”

“No! I get to pick!”

“I’m treating you, I get to pick. There’s a good stall on 8th street that serves some good quality meat for a low price.”

“That’s across town and-,” she paused for a second “Is it really delicious?”

“Dunno, I haven’t really thought about it, and the walk is worth saving the money.”

“You and money!”

It took a while, but Crimson won the argument. He lead Verity to a nearby secret passage -which she acted like was a big deal for some reason- and took a meandering root to 8th street. Fortunately, Verity wasn’t joking when she said that it was on the other side of town, so he benefitted pretty heavily from his time walking.

Skill Level Up!

[Mental Mapping IV] > [Mental Mapping V]

Increased sense of direction, ability to remember where previously mapped location are, accuracy of mental maps increased.

Skill Level Up!

[Secret Sensing II] > [Secret Sensing III]

Ability to sense secrets increased to 30%. Instincts will now waver up in the face of a secret.

The new bonus to [Secret Sensing] was kinda interesting. When he was standing next to a secret passage he felt a sensation in the base of his skull that was almost imperceptible, unless he was paying attention. When he started paying attention it helped him realize just how many secret passages he had missed, he even discovered another layer of tunnels underneath his traveling layer! He would have gone and explored it immediately, if Verity wasn’t with him pestering him the whole time.

The sad thing of the whole experience was that he and Verity still made it to the stall faster than if they had taken the streets above, traffic was that bad.

As a side note: [Mental Mapping] appeared to be a tier one skill, and [Secret Sensing] appeared to be a tier two. There was also the possibility that he just wasn’t getting any good XP for [Secret Sensing] and it might actually be a tier one, but there wasn’t any real way to test that one.

The arrived at the stall and Crimson was able to buy 12 meat sticks for just 3 copper, what a deal! It still hurt spending the money, but it was necessary. Verity ended up eating eight of them and he ate three. The last one was given to Sherry when they made their way back to the guild to train and practice some more before sunset.

Crimson made sure to take an even more confusing path on the way back and the benefits of it were oh so sweet.

Skill Level Up!

[Mental Mapping V] > [Mental Mapping VI]

Accuracy, size, and speed of mapping has increased. Ability to forget mapped areas added.

Skill Level Up!

[Secret Sensing III] > [Secret Sensing IV]

Ability to detect secrets increased to 40%.

Skill Level Up!

[Memorization III] > [Memorization IV]

Memorization Speed increased to 30%.

Sweet indeed. He’d discovered a large amount of new passages with the added power of [Secret Sensing], and [Mental Mapping] benefitted greatly from the weird route to get from the stall back to the guild. He was pretty tempted to spend the rest of the day grinding those three skill through exploration, but his current focus was on [Calligraphy], so he’d have to put them off.

Fortunately, he’d remembered to stop at the general store on the way back, and he’d picked up a hundred pieces of paper for a total of 20 Silver. Paper was a pretty expensive commodity, but it was so much cheaper than the scam that Sherry had been running. He’d also picked up a graphite pencil and a wax pencil to add to his collection. The second one was pretty much a black crayon though.

He then spent the rest of the evening until just before sunset working on [Calligraphy], and thanking his lucky stars that he’d learned the [Fire Light] spell, it save him so much on the cost of candles!

Spell Level Up!

[Fire Light VIII] > [Firelight IX]

Cast speed reduced from 40% to 45%. MP cost reduced to 1/3.

Not that he was really grinding the spell, but it was nice to see it go up. The cost was now small enough that his MP Regen actually out paced the cost of using the spell, so there was no skin of his nose.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy VII] > [Calligraphy VIII]

Control over writing implements increased to 30%

Overall, it was a very satisfying day. He still had some time left before he had to go, so he spent some time swinging around his [Wayfarer’s Companion] to get used to his new blade. Mars was on the field too, but he ignored Crimson.

He didn’t actually feel too bothered by that, he had just ‘graduated’ anyway, better to wait and see what’ll happen.

He headed off to bed in the new inn after bidding Verity and Sherry goodnight. The next day would be very important, his first steps if you will.