Inside a large office behind a wide desk sat a domineering man who looked over a pile of rapports. He wore a dignified attire with a long red cape which hung over his shoulders with the insignia of a silver horse on it. An irked expression was on his face as he finished reading over one of the reports and put it down on the table.

“Thibaud! Get in here now!” He yelled out into the empty room.

Not long after, steps could be heard outside the room. A door was slowly opened and in walked a tall, skinny man in an immaculate costume and glasses. “You called for me, sir.” The man known as Thibaud said in a matter-of-fact tone.

The other man stared at him sharply. “I just finished reading the tower guard’s report from yesterday.” Indignation showed clearly in his dark brown eyes. “Why wasn’t I notified yesterday that there had been an intruder in the tower?” He growled.

Thibaud showed no sign of being disturbed by his superior’s sour mood and stood there with an expressionless face. “By the time that the information reached us the culprit had already managed to escape the guards. The appropriate search procedures had already been taken and there was nothing you could do to aid in the situation. I judged it best to wait until the official report came before informing you of the situation, lest you let your temper get out of hand and march onto the streets to find the culprit yourself and in doing so, inadvertently abandon your other duties.”

The man at the desk clenched fist and glared at Thibaud like he was thinking of strangling the man. “Thibaud, you’re my assistant. You don’t get to decide what I should or shouldn’t know.”

“Duly noted” Thibaud said blankly, but he showed no sign of regretting his actions.

The man at the desk closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths and unclenched his fist. When he opened his eyes again the anger from before had mostly disappeared, but he was still staring at his assistant with irritation.

“Are there any news about the intruder? The report said that he was a young man with brown hair that demonstrated incredible speed. He was also strong enough to break a guard’s leg with a single kick. But that’s not much of a description to go off of.” The man said.

Thibaud shook his head. “You are correct, sir. The guards have searched through the areas close to the tower and are searching through the outer districts as we speak, but as not many have seen his face, I believe it to be highly unlikely that we find him unless he shows himself again.” Thibaud stated.

The man sighed. “This isn’t good. We have no way of knowing how he got inside or what he did in there. Just the thought of what might happen if the wrong person got inside that tower sends shiver down my spine. We have to contact The Warden and tell him about this. For the foreseeable future I want at least three pairs of guards and one mage placed around the tower at all times. And from now on, I want every single piece of information that reaches you to be relayed to me immediately. I’ll decide for myself what’s important or not. Is that understood?” The man gave his assistant with an unconditional glare.

Thibaud gave a small bow. “Understood, captain.” He said before he opened the door and left as inconspicuously as he’d entered.

As soon as his assistant had left the man leaned back in his chair and grabbed his forehead. Of course, he’ll have to be one to inform the duke of this too, he wretchedly thought. He missed his old adventurous life. Why’d he ever accepted the job as guard captain of Dustdrift?

On my way to the shop I saw a few guards here and there but by taking a few detours I avoided them without a problem and soon reached Waldemar’s shop. When Arianne said he was a blacksmith I was sort of expecting his shop to be a forge filled with, you know, forge stuff. I’m no blacksmith so I don’t know what a forge should look like.

What I saw instead was just a shop like any other. The only different thing about it was its wares. The shop was filled with all kinds of metal tools, accessories and other kinds of metal objects. There were a few daggers and short swords hanging off the walls too, but those didn’t interest me.

A kid in his late teens was standing behind a counter at the far end of the shop and looked at me suspiciously as I examined the wares. Eventually I walked up to him and noticed how he tried to act like he hadn’t been staring at me all along. Was he scared I was going steal something or what?

“Hey, is Waldemar in right now?” I asked him.

“What business do you have with him?” He replied curtly.

Geesh, what a nice guy…

“I wanted to ask some questions and perhaps buy some weapons. I was directed to him by a girl that works over at the Weary Trouper. Arianne was her name.”

The fact that he reacted to the mention of Arianne’s name didn’t slip my attention.

“Oh. W-Well, Waldemar isn’t here right now. He’s over at another shop in the Wyndimar District today, so you’re out of luck.” He said, but he wasn’t as rude this time. “But you can ask your questions to me instead. I’m sure I can answer whatever question you might have.” He added hastily.

He sure changed his tune quickly. “Really? That’d be great.” I said and leaned my elbows on the counter. “I was mainly curious about the arms schools in the city. How many there are, which of them that are good, how they work and things like that. You know anything about that?”

He seemed a bit taken aback by my forwardness and hesitated for a second before he replied. “Yes, I do. In fact, I attend one myself actually. There are five here in Dustdrift. I attend the Steelbarrow Arms School, but they’re all of good repute. It’s just that some of them focus on different kinds of weapons and fighting, so it’s better to choose the school depending on that rather than which one you think is better than the other.” He paused and shot me a confused look. “You don’t know how they work though? Don’t they have arms schools where you’re from?” He asked.

“Nah, I’m from what I guess you could call ‘the boonies’, and I haven’t really visited any large cities like this one before. Arms schools, guilds and guards everywhere. It’s all kinda new to me.” I answered as casually as I could and chuckled.

“Well it’s not that complicated. You just pay a tuition to the school depending on your training and they have instructors that train you. Usually you’ll get to spar and train with other students too.”

“And anyone can pay to train at these schools then?”

“Yeah, although if you want to train with a weapon, you’ll have to procure that for yourself.” He got a bit excited. “We have a few here that you can buy for a reasonable price!”

I looked over to where the swords and daggers hang. “Are those all weapons you have?” I asked with a frown.

He looked a bit disappointed at that. “No, we have a few more here, but they are mostly of the same quality and type as those are…”

I felt kind of bad for him. It felt rude of me to come here and ask questions without buying anything. Maybe I should buy something small at least?

“I’ll take that dagger over there.” I said and pointed to a dagger that hung on the wall. It was long, wide, two-edged and had a small guard.

His expression brightened a little as I said that, and he moved away from the counter to get the dagger. When he returned, he placed it on the counter and looked up at me with a smile. “That’ll be one gold and twelve silver.”

“Sure, sure. So, ehm, am I allowed to walk around with this in the city? I was under the impression that all weapons needed permission, but I’ve seen a lot of people go around with knives and daggers, so is there an exception to those?” I asked him as I took out the money and handed it to him.

He took the dagger and wrapped it up in a bundle of cloth and passed it over to me. “Knives and daggers are generally okay to have on your person. This dagger is a bit longer than usual however, but as long as you keep it wrapped up when you walk around on the streets you shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Ah. Good to know.” I said and accepted the wrapped dagger. “By the way, you said you didn’t have any other kinds of weapons here, but do you know a place that does? Specifically, a place where I can buy a Halberd.” I added nonchalantly.

He looked a bit shocked. “You want to buy a halberd? What for?”

I gave him an obvious look. “Well I want to train fight with it at an arms school, obviously.” Rolling my eyes, I added. “That reminds me; Do you know which of the arms schools that might have instructors that can train me in fighting with a halberd?”

“Uhm, I’m not sure if any of them teaches fighting with a halberd. It’s not a commonly used weapon. But the Grimwick Arms School are famous for having instructors that practice a wide variety of styles so it might be worth going there to check. All of the arms schools also sell weapons to their students so if they have someone that can teach you, you can probably buy your weapon there.”

“Really? That’s handy. I’ll be heading off then. Thanks for the help!” I said and waved him goodbye as I turned around to leave the shop.

“W-w-wait!” He yelped from behind me. “Before you go. If you, uh, s-see Arianne again, could you mention that I helped you?” He said as he looked down at the counter with embarrassment.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll tell her.” I said, pressing down a laugh. I’d been called cute sometimes back home so I knew how annoying it could be to be called that as a guy, but my god it really was cute seeing him be embarrassed like that.

I grimaced when I realized that I’d just called another guy cute though. I’m pretty sure that’s like, a cardinal sin or something. As I left the shop I quietly I asked for forgiveness for subjecting him to that, even though it was only in my head.

When I stepped onto the street I paused. I’d forgotten to ask where Grimwick arms schools even was. But it’d be pretty embarrassing to walk in again and ask for directions. I’d just have to make do without. There’s bound to be others that I can ask about where it is.

It took some time. I had to spend almost an hour of walking to reach it. Most of that time was spent with me getting lost because I misunderstood peoples directions. But I did get there eventually, and in my mind that’s all that counts.

The Grimwick Arms School was large. It was actually a collection of several buildings that seemed to have different purposes. Two of the buildings looked to be some kind of training halls. There was a small arena without a roof and pillars as walls where I saw a couple of guys sparring with each other. There was also a couple of normal-looking buildings that I didn’t know the purpose of and a larger building that looked like it was the main building of the school. I headed towards the main building. It was time to buy my halberd. If they had those, which hopefully they did.

The reason I wanted a halberd and not anything else was simple. The only weapon proficiency that I had put any skill points into as Garlyn in ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’ was the halberd proficiency. Well, except a few points which I put into the dagger proficiency so that I had a secondary weapon. As for why Garlyn used a halberd, there wasn’t any special reason. I liked having the longer range and it looked cool. At least the halberds in the game looked cool. I was still a bit miffed that I didn’t have those in my storage at the moment.

Anyways, I was thinking that if everything else of Garlyn’s translated into this world, then so should his weapon skills. That, and I knew that I had some pretty amazing halberds in my storage, and it’d be pretty disappointing if, when I finally get access to them, I had no idea how to use them.

With that thought I opened the doors to the main building of the Grimwick Arms School and walked inside.