Begone Thot Pt3

By now there were plenty of people gathering around and many of them were related to the hawkers but none of them made any moves after witnessing the so-called 'fight' that just took place.

Nobody wanted to be one the receiving in of a head popping slap from yours truly. So, the enchantress and I were left more or less alone despite being encircled by everybody in the smithy. Even the apprentices were gathering around densely to control the crowd.

"Who are your parents, kid," I try asking once again, giving the young lady one last chance to tell me what I wanted to know. "You're the one that tried to threaten me with them, back your words up. Who is supposed to stand behind you? Little Thirteen is one of my people, if you were involved with Thirteenth you would know all about our game-changing relationships. The truth… please."

Looking around at all the people shifting about in the crowd either trying to get a look at us or make an escape in a few cases, QTPi finally realizes she was running out of chances once and for all. "Black and White. Kill me."

"Poach you?" I ask curiously, spraying out tends of pounds of cordycep silk to ensnare the lady while using only a few drops of All-Tox on the first tips of thread. "Good idea. I'll keep you around while you're useful. I can always make use of a pretty face. Here, stand on my knee for a moment."

I actually got down on one knee in front of the lady, now, presenting the other knee for her to use. The woman was skeptical for a moment, but by now the forst on my neck had dried and the wound itself had healed with no traces of blood at all. There was no point in any more resistance.

Even if she piled on all of her attacks until now, she would only do about a thousand damage and I could easily halve that with basic ice mana scales. Despite being covered from the waste up in a crude netting of finger-thick spider's web and debuffing poison that started ticking away more than half of her HP, QTPi wordlessly stepped up onto my knee with some balance struggles.

After finding her footing by the end of her ten-second poisoning damage, I say, "Repeat after me. Everybody not crafting, go home."

When I remained silent to show that I was done with my message, the lady briefly glanced down at me who had a potential view of her skirt only to see me staring up at her face as she calls out, "Everybody not crafting, go home!"

Because of her recent poisoning, her voice was fairly weak and not that loud, but the smithy was relatively silent with only soft murmurs taking place. At least a fourth of the gathered building heard her words and they quickly spread the message for us. Even before they were done people had already started hurrying out of the crowd and away from the smithy.

"To everybody remaining," I begin saying even as people were leaving to report to various destinations, at which point she begins promptly speaking shortly after me. "I am the temporary new poster girl for Tragedy's Travelers and will be hostage hosting an impromptu blacksmithing contest alongside the leader of Tragedy's Travelers.

"Everybody present willing to take part in the event will need to buy ten pounds of basic three-percent carbon steel, the first to craft will be everybody below level twenty followed by below thirty, below forty, and then below fifty. Anybody fifty and up cannot participate in this noob convention."

"That's good," I say quickly and softly, gesturing for the lady to use my hand as a stair and step down from my knee before standing up. Placing a hand on her shoulder to keep her steady and in place as I stand up, I say, "Pick out everybody who stayed and have them empty out their materials. You can keep all your primitives, I just need your metals for funding this event. If you do well, I can take in you and maybe a hand's worth of people if I like them."

The lady said nothing after a while, simply watching the crowd slowly and then swiftly disperse as they wonder at the competition and decide to take part upon seeing others doing so. However, a few people stayed. About a dozen individuals who were all over level fifty remained behind and not exactly far away from me. All of them were at least level fifty.

These people all had the same Marketplace affiliations, declaring them as fellow members of QTPi's good squad. However, even with my overall lack of gear or weapons they did not seem to think too highly of their chances and remained roughly twenty yards away from me at all time. There was no telling who or if any heard what I just said.

When nobody made a move after a full ten seconds of heavy silence, QTPi finally spoke up and says, "I'm a hostage, come… negotiate. He wants our metal stock so just give him what you got and go get… ready." Obviously, there was no point in hiding anything anymore.

It would simply be more effective for them to spend their efforts organizing and preparing rather than worrying about me in person. I was clearly not going anywhere and now had the siding of the general public. So, they all came forward two or three at a time and dumped out hundreds of pounds of iron and tens of pounds of alloying materials apiece before briskly leaving the smithy.

Once they were gone, I had a couple thousand pounds of iron and steel as well as a few hundred pounds of every alloying component. The only thing I was missing was about a thousand pounds of ancient scrap and I would have my public sales material right there. Instead, I just gathered everything into my inventory before divvying it up into different stacks for different purposes.

Based on the levels and stats, I could find as many as a hundred valid candidates here that I could narrow down to about twenty or thirty opportunists with ten or twenty actual winners. Everybody would walk away with whatever they made but not everybody would accumulate rewards.

Honestly I had hoped to do another wall shield challenge specifically because of how much work was put into such all-metal creations but ended up with not enough time and too many people.

I could do such an event later on but it would require some prep work to accommodate the potential volume of participants. For now, everybody can simply hammer out some bastard swords in an hour and move on depending on the results. With these supplies, I can do a second sword phase using Arcanite for an alloy component and then a third using my old signature alloy recipe.

Organizing my thoughts as people begin steadily gathering back around me, along with the slow arrival of the current foreman, I was for the foreman to arrive before saying, "Sir, I am sorry for the trouble I caused but I had found traces of organized criminal activity and am currently in the investigative phase. Please permit me to continue using the current crowd as a cover as well as bandy about my wealth. I promise you and the smithy will be compensated for renting us the venue."

Nodding his head slowly while glancing up at the information above my head, the man heavily regard my current Divine Designer title and says, "Alright, I'll allow it. I watched you fight and even though you were shamefully ruthless you never once put your hands on the lady. You can have your fun, but everything you dont use in this so-called cover will be confiscated by the smithy and proper authorities."

"Thank you for allowing me to do this public service," I say with honest gratitude after having managed to swiftly secure the smithy's permission to proceed as I pleased. The foreman I was used to, though, would have probably joined in the fun early on because of how little appreciation he would have had for these people and how much he liked me.

Less than twenty minutes later, everybody who fit my specs had gathered around with a turn-out of little less than three hundred people. From them I would have to discard at least one hundred and fifty people in the first round. Luckily, the first round would possibly be the hardest round.

"Melpomene help us and bless this steel, you're our only hope," I say calmly and casually but not overly loudly, only seeking to apply but not enforce Melpomene's blessing on this first wave of basic steel. Next I spent ten minutes explaining and describing the process and recipe for my Fuller Bastard sword before sending everyone below level twenty to get to work.

Because this process was meant to be done without any folding techniques, coming out with high damages would be incredibly hard even with my blessing on the steel. The natural parameters of their swords would rely almost solely on their actual crafting skills as the basic qualifier. At my original noob levels, a simply steel bastard did twenty-two damage.

With this blessed steel, anything below twenty-five for the guys below level twenty would be disqualified but they could keep the sword. For people below thirty, thirty was the qualifier while thirty-five qualified everybody between thirty and fifty. If there were still too many people, I would then look at the general appearance and functionality of their creations to weed of the lesser crafters.

In less than an hour, the forty people taking part in this aspect of the event were finished crafting and brought forward their creations. Obviously, any of them with flaws would naturally have bad parameters and these were first-time creations. As it turned out, only thirteen of these noobs actually managed to make a proper bastard sword and all of them were no lower than twenty-five points in damage with plus-ten-percent skill damage and effects against undead.

These thirteen were automatically pushed forward into the next phase while the next group below thirty were sent forward to the forges. These guys made up the bulk of the people present, equaling as many as people about level thirty. Apparently, this most recent generation of players were leveling much faster than their second wave predecessors.

Throughout this process, QTPi remained quietly and comfortably nearby my waiting station sitting on a large pile of stock iron. She was literally seated on one thousand pounds of ingots roughly eye level with me. She might have even been a little taller in her perch.

Around this time, though, people with levels above fifty began showing up around the outside of the smithy as if gathering for a show. However, all of these few dozen people bore the same three different clans affiliations and wore various skill, stat, or just general combat related titles. It was clear they were ready for a fight.

None of them came in, though, even as the people under thirty finished their work and gathered around for appraisal. With eighty-seven slots vacant, I could be a little free with about forty of those slots right now. These guys were all level twenty-nine and below so if they had qualifying weapons they had good potential. Thirty damage with a plain hammered metal sword was something even I could not do with normal steel.

However, only thirty of this group actually made the cut despite several weapons having noticeable defects. After removing those three defective weapons which had been damaged in the forging process, I had twenty-seven new second-phase participants. Then I simply waved everybody under level fifty toward the forges and rushed them along.

The once dark sky outside the smithy was turning from black to dark blue with the first signs of night transitioning to day by the time the final group of craftsmen were done. None of their swords were below thirty-five in value, forcing me to deeply evaluate their work.

From the people above level thirty I kept thirty people and then filled in the rest of the one hundred slots with people over forty.

If I was willing to take in one hundred craftsmen for the clan I would simply eat this entire lot of people now. However, there were not enough people and now was the wrong time for heavy business moves in the city. If there was no outlaw event, there would be more outlets for our clan's crafts. As it was, everybody had already bought up or were going to by up everything they needed for a long time before we would be ready.

Sending all the unnecessary people away to further empty out the smithy, I give each of them a ten-pound block of alloy that I had personally transmuted from the same steel they just used and a pound of Arcanite to make an eleven-pound ingot. Now their tasks were to make a whole new sword. Everybody would need to make a weapon above thirty in damage and bearing some form of magic effect.

Even if it was a simply conductivity buff or some innate fire damage, they would be up for a passing grade. However, if they could not meet both requirements then everybody but the thirteen under level twenty would be dismissed. Their levels were so low and were proven to be classless players. I wanted them long-term for the clan.

With only a hundred people in this phase, everybody was hard at work all at the same time, leaving QTPi and I with plenty of time and space to handle business. Sadly, none of her compatriots ever entered the forge. Oddly enough, despite the drama that took place there were also no authorities arriving. I was not complaining, though.

As long as they did not bother me I would not yet bother with them.

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