Melpomene?

Because I had spent most of my travel time in the coach on Fast Travel, I had only spent about four hours of real time in the game by the time I finally returned to the carriage with another new title and a new perk. The title was Goblin Killer which unlocked after killing one hundred goblins and was the upgraded version of Hunter where goblins 'might begin seeking you out'.

Then half an hour later I unlocked the perk Goblin Massacre for killing one hundred goblins in a single day or night which made goblin-kind start to fear me and lowered their stats by five percent in my presence. Considering I had somehow raised a negative affinity with a monster species, it was potentially a life saving bonus. They could appear at any time.

After helping Sir Beryl get some extra sleep and returning to the carriage, though, I ended up spending the midday break crafting. I was almost level twelve with only a hundred-plus experience to go, and making a single dusk fang arrow worth eight damage brought me eight experience. Using some simple grasses instead of feathers for fletching, I made thirty arrows and reached level twelve in half an hour.

With a simple sleeve quiver of shitty arrows and my Simple Bow for added protection, I took Lana and the dog out hunting again for an hour until she finally managed to kill enough animals to reach level ten while developing a Bow Hunting skill. Then, with the pelts and hides and other materials she had been gathering I showed her how to make some simple armor pieces while we rode in the wagon.

Unlike previously, though, we did not stop in the evening because the city was already in sight but instead just kept trundling along. For armor that they did not really need anymore, Lana now had a simple vest of soft animal hide with the fur lining the inside of the armor and an outer layer of thicker goblin skin. As well, she now wore a pair of riding chaps and, bracers, and a loose but layered and lace-quilted skullcap.

The other pieces of armor only gave five defense but the skullcap's thickness and rounded design provided a whopping seven defense. I ended up making one for myself to replace the tutorial cap I found.

Both headgear covered my ears and provided small buffs against the cold, but the one made with soft goblin leather also had the minor magic and fire resistances. However, I changed mine up a little based on its fire resistance so that the cap had a long tail that covered the back of my neck and to the edges of this tail I laced a woven-padded face mask.

The fire resistance of this particular piece went up to five percent just based on coverage but the magic resistance did not change any. The defense also rose all the way to ten points so I went ahead and made the same adjustments to Lana's skullcap. All of this was done only an hour or two after the midday break.

All of my time spent traveling after that was spent working on making some simple woven leather armor pieces to store in my inventory for when I ran into my friends.

Since the hides and stuff were already cleaned of their fats and stretched by the game before 'acquisition' it was really just a simple process of cutting five whole skins into binding and weaving material before cutting out pieces of leather to seam and lace and weave and fit together. The armor I used was only treated in a few ways to use as examples, so it was easy to replicate even while soft.

If I had the time and access to the equipment necessary, I could have spent an entire day making some upper level armor pieces. As it was, I could only make simplified versions of my armor while in a moving carriage as well as the decently defensive masked skull caps. By the time the carriage was briefly inspected by a pair of city guards in leather and mail armor, I had made ten suits whose defenses still came out to eight per piece in my hands thanks to my own buffs.

My friends would probably only get about seven defense from each piece, but a basic one-layer hardened leather vest with no padding only offered five defense so it was a more mobile upgrade from their current armor.

After entering the city the carriage took us to a large coach stage built onto a large inn not too far within the city. Here, Lana paid five gold for either of us to spend the night with meals and a bath. Lana was more excited about the bath than anything else, scarfing down the meal in half the time it took me before running toward the back of the building to visit the bathhouse.

After we both had our baths I went to escort Lana to her room before spending my night exploring only to find that Lana had paid for a single room with two beds. I did not plan on actually sleeping here and it was probably cheaper to get this kind of room, but I was still a little disconcerted by the idea of sharing a room. While I was a healthy young man with an undeniably functional libido, my first thoughts were along the lines of, 'drama', and then an image of ruined underwear.

"Will you be fine sleeping here alone?" I ask curiously, wondering if there was another reason why it was a double room.

Lana actually seemed somewhat surprised by the question and asked, "Are you not staying here?"

"No, I was going to explore the city a bit," I reply with a quick shake of my head. "I was told some business remain open at all hours because of the habits of various races. I want to find one of the twenty-four hour businesses and work on developing a relationship with them. I have friends who might be in the area, as well. Don't worry, though, I'll be leaving the hound with you," I add as an afterthought.

Looking toward the hound that had already lain down across the foot of the bed closest to the door, Lana simply nods and says, "Alright, should I lock the door or no?"

"Definitely," I reply while trying not to be awkward, hoping to relieve the odd tension in the room by reaching out to pat her head like a little kid before turning and leaving the room.

Once outside, I looked at my compass bar loaded with a variety of different icons that were both highlighted white and shaded gray. Since some icons were obviously businesses, it was a quick process of elimination to find a hammer and anvil icon that was not shaded out yet and still open, or highlighted. The night life of the city was probably half as active as I expected it to be during the day, but there were only a handful of actual human people out and about.

Most of the people in this city were humans and woodland creatures like some like tall and lithe elven people with either dark ashen gray skin or very pale almost glowing white skin and pointed ears. I only actually saw about a dozen of either of them, most of the people I saw were beast folk of nocturnal variations and some demihuman people like half-orcs and other halflings who kept to the edges of society.

When I finally reached my chosen destination I found a large open two-story masonry building with first floor walls of open archways. Inside were numerous furnaces and forges in the high-ceiling building with arrays of anvils and small work tables centered around six large forge walls with three large furnaces at either end of the building.

Closing off the middle of each of the four walls were long tables and benches of equipment and rest areas that stretched across several archways apiece.

I quickly realized from the fact that several people here bore vague transparent pyramid icons over their heads that this was a municipal smithy of some sort. As I entered the building, a large burly man in professional smithing attire only a little more expensive looking than Rocar's leather apron and canvas clothes walked up to me. "Are you here for the facilities?" He asks somewhat briskly while examining my slightly worn looking equipment.

I had been clawed and chewed by a few ferecats and my armor was covered in scuffs from root wood clubs during my travels. "Now that I'm here, I might," I reply after a brief thought. "But I thought I was on my way to an actual business. Can you tell me a bit about the facilities?"

Frowning slightly to one side, the man says, "It's currently fifteen gold an hour to use the tools, forges, and furnaces, the prices change between day and night though but don't tell people that or we'll be crowded at night more than day. If you need materials like iron or allow components you can buy some but we don't offer anything fancy and none of it is cheap."

"What's the three best alloy materials, their prices, and what do they do?" I ask curiously, wondering if I should not go ahead and work on upgrading my weapon. If I recycled Fuller Haunting but only added allowing materials to make a new fuller sword then I should be able to keep the Geist skill that was created by recycling.

"Vanium, ridium, and arcanite at one hundred gold per pound, fifty gold per pound, and twenty-five gold per pound," he replies with a shrug. "We sell by pound but for something like vanium you only need a tenth of a pound per ten pounds.

"Vanium increases the mana conductivity of alloys and in steel it tightens the grain before tempering, making it stronger and take sharper edges before even tempering," he carries on in an almost bored fashion. "Ridium is another material that increases the conductivity and heat resistances of alloys but it makes for shoddy cutting steels so its mostly used in armor. Arcanite is just a cheap conduction ingredient for any steel but it's also the main ingredient in mage's steel because it will turn the blade different colors based on the mage's power when it was crafted if more than one in ten pounds were used."

Knowing it would probably be cheaper to acquire these materials elsewhere, I open my player inventory and withdraw two hundred of my heard earned gold. "I'll take one pound of vanium and ridium and two of arcanite, but can I receive them in serving sizes per ten pounds? The arcanite can be whole pound pieces, though. I still need to travel around a bit and look for some friends of mine, but I'll probably be back in a couple of hours."

"Wait here," the man says briefly, accepting my gold before walking off across the one-acre building. Just a few minutes later he comes back with a large tray bearing wooden plates of metal blocks and a large scale.

"I'll take your word for the weights," I assure the man quickly after simply counting the different pieces of one-pound portions. "When I come back, probably with friends, is there a discount for renting an entire area or as a group? I'm the only one who is any good at crafting but they still need to do it to grow."

"If it's small like three other people then I can charge you kids ten a head by the hour if you pay for more than one at a time," he replies after only a couple seconds of thoughtfully bagging metal. "Anymore than that, though, and I'll have to charge you the price of renting an entire forge per hour. Is that everything?"

"Yes, sir, and thanks a bunch for your help," I reply while accepting the small cloth sacks of clinking alloy components. "I'll see you in an hour or two, take it easy til then."

"See you later," he replies in his usual brisk manner before wandering off to bark orders at an assistant working a nearby equipment station.

[You have developed a favorable opinion from Agar the night foreman of the Sierra public smithy, continuing to do business here in a positive and profitable manner will continue to increase your affinity with Agar. Current affinity: 56%, +6% from Neutral]

Leaving the smithy while opening my menus, I switch over to Social and opened up my unaddressed messages and requests. I did not interact with any actual players and my name was set to private so all of the friend requests were from people who actually knew me. However, while spam accepting over a dozen requests I came across a name I was unfamiliar with.

As messages already started popping up from my 'new' friends, I hesitated over who this person was. Finally, I went to the party section and started my own before inviting the friends who were online. Once they started joining I simply asked over the party channel, "Who the hell is Melpomene?"

There was was silence at first and then a girl's voice says, "I don't know, but it's probably a girl because they chose a generic name. It's a good one, but it's still really over used in games and stuff."

"Never heard of it," I inform them frankly, checking the people in the channel to see the name IvanaWin was the one talking. "What is it?"

"You know those theater masks that everybody gets tattoos or jewelry of or you see in movies and shows a lot?" They ask with an odd amount of detail in their referencing material. "The sad-looking tragedy mask represents the muse of tragedy, Melpomene. I was in theater and drama in high school."

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