Head full of arrowheads

Linda drove to her place in thoughts of how to get rid of the predicament she found herself in. She knew they had other informants besides her since she was contacted every meeting Robert and Rickman had. Also after every meeting of the board of directors.

Someone must be informing them of things happening in the company. The other moles just didn't have the details and she was supposed to fill in the blanks. Linda did not find any way out except to get herself fired but she was afraid how they would react to that so she dismissed that option.

If she was not an asset she was a liability.

As she got home she washed up and climbed in her bed and tried to take her mind of these things playing soothing music on her stereo and hoping Mr. Sandman to take her as soon as possible to a less daunting reality.

Rowan woke up in an unfamiliar room. He looked around and remembered quickly where he was. He dressed went to the bathroom and washed up and got back in the shop where Old Jonas was already serving a customer.

Even after so long Rowan did not really know what Jonas sold. After a few glances on the shelves, he saw different kinds of flours, seeds, nuts, candied fruit, cholates, and sugars.

He went outside and saw the sign which said "Cake Heaven". He looked weirdly at the sign and at the church nearby. The location the shop was at was excellent and Jonas ran a baking goods specialty store. Things didn't seem to fit.

As the customer left with her bag filled with supplies he went back inside.

"Here are 2 packs of raisins and oatmeal ... Go make us some breakfast.", Jonas immediately approached Rowan.

Rowan nodded and did as instructed. His proficiency with [Oatmeal with raisins] climbed to 10/10 as he made the last dish. He served the last dish to Old Jonas and decided to ask him some questions.

Before he could do so Jonas complimented his cooking.

"Wow, kid. This is almost as good as my Lora's.", Old Jonas said as he licked his lips.

"So your shop is called "Cake Heaven" and you are selling baking supplies?", Rowan asked.

"Yes. You don't like the name?", Old Jonas looked intrigued.

"No, no, I like it. I just find it weird you sell baking goods here.", Rowan replied.

"Well after I was forced to close my former shop I needed something to sell and my Lora got her supplies from her restaurant to fill the shelves temporarily and since I had no storage for perishable goods we had to settle for baking supplies. The business was not bad since we had no competition and it stayed as you can see it.", Old Jonas explained.

"What kind of shop was it before?", asked Rowan after he nodded.

Jonas looked around then leaned closer and then in a hushed voice he said. "It was a funeral home but since the church graveyard was full and there were no new plots available they made now new graves. There is another graveyard on the other side of town and it already has a funeral home next to it. To be honest I don't miss my old job at all. People tend to be a lot happier buying baking supplies than a casket."

Jonas was still laughing at his last remark as Rowan was looking at him with a weird face.

"So the cellar, bellow was a ?", Rowan asked.

"It was a morgue.", Old Jonas said.

"We sometimes temporarily stored some flour sacks but after the last dead was buried twelve years ago we didn't use it for that purpose anymore. We could not bring ourselves to use it as cold storage for food at the same place where there used to be dead people either.", Jonas explained in detail.

"I see.", Rowan nodded.

On the inside the thought that his first friend in the game was a former mortician and that the cellar he spent hours in was a former morgue made him shiver. Then he thought how nice Old Jonas actually is and how tragic his story is. First, he lost his livelihood then after fixing that, he lost his wife and his apprentice.

As if figuring out his thoughts Jonas suddenly asked.

"Are you afraid to go to the cellar now?"

"No, but I have some things to do at the blacksmith's place. ", Rowan replied.

In truth, he was a bit scared but if he didn't have the molds he was eager to try out waiting for him he would have probably still gone downstairs. He said his goodbyes to Jonas and walked to Fred's place.

As he reached the door a customer was standing in front of it admiring the long sword Fred was working on yesterday as it glimmered in the sun. He raised it high above him as if he tried to poke the sun away but soon found himself rather embarrassed as he saw a kid looking at him.

He hastily put the sword away and left with a quick tempo.

Rowan got into the shop and saw Fred tidying up the shelves.

"Good morning. You came back to work?", asked Fred with a surprised voice.

Fred figured the kid would be a no show after yesterday. He made one of the one thousand arrowheads.

Rowan said good morning and nodded then went to the workshop leaving Fred a bit perplexed.

"Well, I do like his attitude even though his strength is crap.", he commented.

Rowan quickly reached the molds then put the corresponding halves together and started up the forge.

He put the molds neatly stacked one against each other in 10 molds per stack so he was left with 2 big molds.

Taking the crucible which still had metal inside he filled it up with even more and put it inside the burning flame. As Rowan operated the bellow he enjoyed the whooshing sound every time the flame got more power. When he thought the metal was hot enough he stopped and picked up thongs and removed the crucible and poured the metal over the holes of the mold stack.

There was a line of metal on top of the mold but Rowan didn't worry. He would remove the excess and resmelt it after it cooled. He repeated the process and poured the metal into the other mold stack.

At this time the first mold got cool enough to touch so he split it and what he got out resembled the headpiece of a rake. He tossed it into a bucket of water using tongs but had to turn it around since it only fir three quarters inside

After it cooled Rowan removed the teeth or tines as people call them of that rake head and went to the whetstone.

Rowan sharpened each arrowhead on the whetstone and soon enjoyed the system messages of his proficiency with it going up. When he was done he reached 11/100 in proficiency.

He put the molds back together and started smelting iron again. When it reached the liquid state he again poured it into the mold stack but then went to the other mold. Rowan dismantled it, used the bucket of water, removed tines, sharpen arrowheads, combined mold stack, filled the crucible, heated iron till it boiled and poured.

The process was boring but Rowan was used to such work when he earned money for his computer so he just repeated everything as fast as he could. Rowan repeated the same cycle approximately every 20 minutes and he was getting faster at it after every cycle.

After 3 hours and 20 minutes, Rowan needed to stop since the feelings of hunger and thirst became too much for him. If he was not catching the 100 proficiency number he would have stopped sooner.

As the last piece was made and his proficiency reached the maximum he was surprised with another notification.

[Novice blacksmith level upgraded to level 2]

He checked his status window and his blacksmith level was [Novice blacksmith 6/10].

Rowan came out of the workshop and saw Fred sweeping the floor. As he wanted to ask him if he could leave for lunch Fred beat him to it.

"How many did you manage to make?", Fred squinted as he eagerly awaited the answer.

"I am at 101. 899 to go.", Rowan answered.

"What? How many? 101", Fred yelled.

Rowan was thinking he was slow so he sheepishly replied.

"Yes, but I am getting faster. I needed to stop since I am thirsty and hungry. Will do more later.",

Fred looked at him like he was seeing an idiot.

"You are making your first blacksmithing product ever and made 100 in 3 hours and you are claiming you are even getting faster.". Fred thought.

But what he said was: "Bring them here let me see them."

Rowan suppressed his thirst and hunger and returned to the workshop and dragged the box with finished arrowheads into the shop. It was too heavy to lift for him so he could not carry it.

Fred looked at him again like he was seeing an idiot but he didn't say a thing. He checked the arrowheads and he could see they were getting progressively worse from top to bottom of the box. He was intelligent enough to figure out the reason why. The products laying on top were the latest and those at the bottom were the one from yesterday and the earliest from today.

There was exactly 101 of them and two of them he could not make better himself.

He smiled and then said to Rowan.

"Good work. Let me treat you to lunch."