Begone, Thot

After the fiasco at the Guild I decided to take some time to myself, sending Lana back home with the others.

Choosing a familiar place with more or less friendly faces, I decided to make my way to the municipal smithy where I could blow off some steam and maybe get a chance to properly show off. The people there would all be fairly low leveled and people higher in skill or level would have connections of some sort by now.

The people there would probably just be noobs, giving me the chance to both show off my skills and give advice to fresh players. If I liked anyone, I might even give them some material and-or offer them a clan invite. Roughly two thirds of our clan were classless players and all of them spared time for crafting but we did not yet have anyone who were dedicated crafters.

Even if none of these people were dedicated to the craft they could still be contracted for a couple of in-game months to spend all their time leveling through different forms of crafting and small four or six-hour periods of 'live training' in combat. One month of reality time for three months of game calendar time was something of a fair deal considering they would still retain cuts and get plenty of clan benefits.

They post their crafts in the store for cheap, we buy and sell for plenty, and they stockpile points to pyramid scheme their way to our S-class materials. This, though, was where the clan mount requirement came into play. Such a time as they had made such a commitment and seen everything in our clan store, they will be too distracted trying to collect demons to leave.

My goals were not too high at the moment, just enough to supply the clan itself with a little surplus for making money. Now that mobs paid differently, association with places like the Guild were a requirement. Not only for missions, but for trade. The Guild basically functioned as a trade hub for its members similar to a private Golden Ferry.

Both the Guild and the Golden Ferry would be our primary sources of income regardless of how many crafting players I acquired. If most of them were classless, then it would be even better. Not because of Guild restrictions which were now bypassed by common Traveler knowledge but because of their own stats.

The protection and 'training' of a big clan like ours would eventually become were seductive even before learning clan benefits and operations. Classless players with generally low stats would thrive under general training and crafting stats. If we restricted materials in the clan into small level groups, they in particular would end up achieving a near-peak stat growth without achievement factors.

When I finally arrived at the wide open forge, though, I was surprised by an unfamiliar sight. The smithy itself seemed to have grown by ten forge wells, expanding the land itself by an acre overall. The forges were no longer roundly placed but instead organized in neat lines with slightly fewer neighboring anvils. Regardless of this, the place was packed.

Not only were all of the apprentices in play running metals and tools about the area but the walkways were almost standing room only and everywhere in sight there were people.

Besides the near-fifty NPC present, there had to be a couple hundred people and only half of them were actually working. Many of them had set themselves up in every available location and were openly hawking wares of all sorts as long as they were related to smithing. They were even offering the same alloys as the smithy but at slightly higher prices.

Worse, still, people were actually buying from them! It was as if they had bought up the smithy's stock and were selling it themselves. A further division of the present players was their information. Most taking up space and screaming at the tops of their lungs were around level forty and everybody else were well below thirty.

Before even entering the smithy, I simply transmuted a cordycep cloak to wear over my 'ruined' Delai Family Guardian uniform with a deep hood. The cloak itself had a shining blue name that I did not even look at but seemed appropriate. Even shining, blue was only Rare or Magic so anybody with the ability to inspect equipment would only be superficially interested in it.

After meandering about for a while, I was approached a few times by people asking about my cloak. Most of them were around level twenty but each of them seemed like they had just come over from some group of hawkers. I could not tell who was really interested in the cloak at this point.

Despite the unwanted attention I hoped to avoid by hiding my costume, I managed to get some closer looks at most of the people in the smithy. Few of the crafters were affiliated with clans or even had titles above green Uncommon but a few of them had acquired differently worded or reasoned crafting titles. In fact, everybody here was unsmartly but smartly using a title that I could cross reference on the forums which related to crafting or stats behind certain crafting types.

The hawkers who grew more and more annoying as they began openly stopping me to ask about my cloak were not wearing titles or clan affiliations at all. Some of them wore similar styles of armor which bore brands, but I could not get away with cross referencing such things on my menus.

Even with my hood it would not be hard to notice me constantly checking them again and again. However, I could roughly remember their clan icons and eventually realized that many of them were in the same clans. Obviously, the hawkers in these armors were protection and the real hawkers who handled deals were their tradesman.

When I reached the old 'front' area where the foreman would usually be running the show, I found an entirely new old man who was patiently handling some deals with new and old players alike. The man was simply old in the face, with some fat and more wrinkles, but his body was straight and sturdy and never showed any trouble handling various amounts of alloy materials.

By this time, I had been approached by over a dozen hawkers around level forty and followed by four different clan suits. None of them were familiar and I had turned all my info on private after leaving the Guild, so none of them knew anything about me besides the fact that I looked nice and avoided them.

Once I reached the relative safe zone around the foreman, I waited near the end of the currently short line and scanned my immediate area with my perception. I had acquired about seven different followers all all of them remained about fifteen yards away, so my immediate area was currently limited to ten yards.

Plenty of people came within my bubble during that time, but only a handful of them got in line behind me. The first person was some random guy with a weak magical impression, the second some random lady with a weak physical impression, and the third was a vaguely familiar body, armor, and magical signature.

This guy was following me. Then behind him came another random as I approached the foreman. Before they had even got comfortable in line, another follower had followed them into line. How small minded could they be to put this much effort into a cloak?!

"What can I do for you, young man," the old foreman asks pleasantly enough despite giving my overall hood and slight frown. Looking up higher to better reveal my face to the person I was talking to, I say, "Hi, I was hoping to buy two pounds of Arcanite, one pound of iridium, and one pound of cobalt."

"Sorry, son, but we're out of cobalt," the man replies, glancing out towards the rest of the smithy. Or rather, at the scattered groups of hawkers. "You can probably find someone who is selling it. Probably bought it from me, too."

Testing the waters, I monitor the two people who had followed me in line while asking, "How long has this been going on for? I was gone for a few weeks but I used to frequent the municipal overnight frequently.

"Not long, only for about a week," he replies while frowning thoughtfully. "Someone learned you could sell more than just your crafts here and, ever since, it's become this screaming and missing competition between the lot of them. Ever since I took the critters in the forest went crazy and I took over here, it's been almost frustrating."

"Ah, that explains why we don't know each other," I reply distractedly, taking a step to the side so the next person can come forward. "I'll just work a different project I had materials for, thanks you sir." With that, I promptly turned and left. Before my perception even left the range of the foreman, the furthest follower had left the line and returned to following me.

Since neither of them actually showed any signs of noticing my perception, I simply expanded it as I walked and eventually the other guy followed a few paces later. It was almost like they were used to this. However, instead of heading back out into the crowd I simply wandered the edges of the building looking at the apprentices.

This would hopefully give me the excuse of looking for my own assistant while continuing to review the people around me both visually and with my perception. None but those dedicated two of my original followers were still around me but their presence had drawn people from other groups to follow at length as well. At this point, though, none of the actual tradesmen tried to approach me.

No matter where I looked, though, I could not spot Canley or anybody that I might have recognized among the people present. With the moving of his family to the Delai family I doubted he would continue working here like we wanted. However, it was more likely he had used the equipment and recipes I gave him to follow the foreman since he was originally in the reserve.

After completing a full circle around the square smithy and then standing in place for about a minute simply biding my time, I was finally approached by somebody. This somebody turned out to be a lady with the clan affiliation of Marketplace with an emblem that did not match any of the icons here overall. However, it still looked vaguely familiar.

Under the affiliate was the title Expert Enchantress with a purple coloring and then the name and level 'QTPi.69 LV52'. He name was both outrageous and clever considering the potential LACK of availability for anything using those two numbers. Unlike the numbers, her sleek steel splinted leather armor was designed in a way that gave one the impression of 'open' and 'available'.

"Are you done checking me out?" She asks with a falsely sweet smile after standing in front of me without saying anything for a full three seconds.

"You came to me, I'm just waiting for you to tell me the pri- what you want. Cough. Cough," I add in a decidedly dry and non-humorous way.

Laughing lightly but in a forced way that was too loud, QTPi soon says, "Cute, but not as nice as your outfit. The costume is fine but this cloak… I've tried asking you a dozen time but you never would give a price. So instead, I decided to come and ask you more about it. What kind of silk is this?"

"I call it shilk," I bluntly lie with a completely straight face and voice. "I'm the only one so far who has found a source of it. I can show you how it's made, for a price. For ten thousand new gold, I'll take you just around the corner and show you how I cop a squat to work shilky magic."

The smile was now completely gone from the lady's face and she said, "As long as you can make it. How much do you have? Why don't we go somewhere better to talk about this?"

"We being you, the eight people who have been following me for the last ten minutes, and myself?" I ask curiously and a little louder than I had been. "Listen, lady, I just came here for publicity, dont make things weird. I'm not interested in your services this evening."

For a moment she looked a little surprised and then she looked upset when I essentially called her a hooker. When I was done she simply looked around at exactly those eight people I mentioned and then says, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Each of those people have no problem spending a day or two in a comfy jail cell for attacking or killing a player in public. If you die quick enough, we can just say it was a duel and nobody would argue. Then my pretty face walks away and puts your pretty face on a forum post, hm?"

"And here I thought I was being obnoxious, I say while slowly and calmly clapping my hands in an a-dramatic fashion. "You win," I lie again, "let's talk. What do you want?"

"Do you have a clan?" She asks curiously but without smiling anymore. "Usually only soloists go full private. What level are you? Mine is the second biggest clan in the region and we can offer a craftsmen a lot of good benefits. If not, we can offer a lot of hell as well. We also have parent clans in the capital, so you won't be able to just leave the city and go somewhere else."

"You're really trying to threaten me here," I say with a shocked laugh, surprised at her frank and honest behavior. "You want me to join your clan and be your sweatshop slave? Begone, thot."