Hammerhead cleared his throat as Diane calmly collected her daggers. “Right then. Best not keep the two of you waiting.” He said with a nod, reaching into his inventory to pull out the prepared equipment. “Did my best to match your requirements, though I might have done a tad better than I planned.”
“How’s that?” I glanced from him to the first piece of gear that he had pulled out, which was a leather brigandine with intricate black and red patterns embedded in thin, metal plates.
“You asked for level fifty to sixty, and from what I can tell, the gear came out roughly equivalent to level sixty-five. Still, the materials were good, and you wanted to prioritize enchantment slots and innate traits. The armor might feel a bit bulky if you wear it right away, but given it’s been more than a week, you might’ve already grown enough to wear it.”
I gave a small nod at that, before looking at him curiously. “The armor has an innate trait?”
Hammerhead grinned in self-satisfaction. “That’s right. I combined a few different materials from around the world. Metal scrap from a black iron golem found at the southern tip of this continent, blood rubies solidified from the blood of vampires that live on a continent to the east of us, and the leather of a troll king that I found for cheap nearby.”
“When I combined all of these together for your armor, it created the innate trait Blood Soaked. Really, I should be thanking you for giving me the chance to discover this trait, since it’ll make my business more money in the future.”
I paused, thinking through the materials and the name of the trait. “I’m guessing that the trait causes a rise in stats whenever the equipment is covered in blood?”
“Even better.” His grin widened. “The equipment has a self repair function, so it repairs by absorbing any blood that lands on it. Half of the reason players ditch their gear is because they outlevel it. Once the leveling speed slows down, the other half starts to take over, and that is the difficulty and fees incurred when repairing equipment. If your armor sustains enough damage, it’s often cheaper just to get something new, even if you have to re-enchant it.”
My eyes shot wide at the idea of self-repairing armor. Granted, it could only be repaired in the midst of battle, so there was still the danger of ending a fight with damaged equipment and needing to go into the next fight with a handicap. “And… the weapons?”
Hammerhead let out a low sigh, shaking his head. “Those, I wasn’t as lucky with. No innate traits for your sword. For your bow, I tried a few different combinations of materials to try to get something, but the best that I could do was an increase in maximum range by making the bowstring from the tendons of a wind spirit beast.”
“Also, according to my tests, you’ll need the average strength of a level sixty player to fully draw the bow. Damn near made me run out to grind levels myself just to string the bow. Ended up asking a friend to help with that step.” As he spoke, he began pulling out the rest of the equipment.
The armor all had the same general style as the brigandine, including the shield. The sword wasn’t like the scimitar that I had grown accustomed to using, but rather closer to the straight blade produced whenever I used Shadow Blade, and made of a black material with a red line down the center of the blade. The bow was similarly made of black metal, though the string was white, and seemed to release a faint mist.
“Since you asked for the maximum number of enchantment slots, I had to make a few sets of each, but everything here has five slots.” He announced proudly, and I was once again surprised. I wasn’t sure what skills I would use for all of those, but there was plenty of time to think about that later.
“How much do I owe you?” I asked, remembering that I agreed to pay for any materials he used on the failures or experiments.
Hammerhead crossed his arms over his chest, calculating in his head. “Let’s see… for this gear, plus all the other stuff… Fifteen gold should be the total. I’d offer to let you pay in installments, since I know that’s a hefty sum at this point in the game, but I remember Diane saying that you had sold dungeon rights before. Smart move, by the way, and it means you should still have plenty to afford this.”
I nodded my head, preparing to retrieve the money from my inventory, before pausing. “Did something happen? What makes that such a smart move over the monthly payment method?”
Hammerhead let out a light snort. “Guess you haven’t heard the news. Players that went for monthly payments from the city lords have been getting ripped off. See, the city lords only have to pay a percentage of the profits earned from the dungeon, right? But, if the dungeon doesn’t have a desperately needed resource, the city lord will simply close the dungeon. If nobody enters, there’s no profit to gain.”
“Don’t they still make more than they spend if they raid the dungeon?” I asked, to which he nodded his head.
“That’s true, but there’s a limit to how many people they have at their disposal to handle the raids. They still need to protect the territory, after all. At most, they would go through the first floor to prevent a dungeon break and clear out the mobs every few days. Since it’s just the first floor, that’s still an almost nonexistent payment for the person that got the key.”
“Thanks to that, lately anyone that gets one is choosing to sell it outright. If the city doesn’t have to worry about paying the agreed tax, they will happily invest their troops in raiding the dungeon for any amount of profit.”
I gave a small nod as I heard that, pulling out fifteen gold coins to hand to Hammerhead. “By the way, are you trained in alchemy? I thought it might help to purchase some potions before I leave town.”
Hammerhead grunted, shaking his head. “I can do some basic herbal alchemy, but the good stuff’s done through enchanting. Make a potion with herbs, then enchant it with a matching skill, and that’s how you get a high-grade potion. Unfortunately, that means that anyone who wants to sell good healing potions has to be licensed by the church.”
I nodded my head, thinking about that for a moment. Alchemy might actually be a crafting skill that I could utilize, but… no, I shook my head quickly. Most potions would require a magic skill to be enchanted onto them, and the backlash from enchanting that skill could destroy the equipment that I was using to craft the potion in the first place.
“In that case, there’s… just a couple things I need to know.” I spoke up, glancing at my suddenly full inventory. “First, do you sell any bags? Also… do you know any way to disenchant an item, if you decide you want to replace an enchantment?”
Hammerhead nodded his head to the first. “Yeah, we’ve got bags here. Lots of loot goblins running around, so people never seem to have enough inventory space.” I was briefly confused what he meant by ‘loot goblins’, but decided not to ask. “As for disenchanting… afraid there’s not been any major discovery there. Someone claimed a few days back that they had a trait that could remove enchantments, but that’s about all that’s come out.”
I gave a small nod, pulling out my old gear to sell. For now, I kept the Crystal Mole Gloves with the Heal enchantment, just in case I came across a situation that my new Set Bone skill wasn’t able to handle. “In that case, I’d like to trade these for whatever bag I can get.”
Hammerhead glanced at the armor that I presented to him. “Given the deal we just made, I’ll give you about seventy percent for all of that. Total should come to three gold. As for a bag that you can get with three gold…” He stroked a hand through his long beard. “You can get a fifteen slot and a ten slot bag. Or, a single bag with twenty slots.”
“I’ll take the two bags.” I said with a nod. I just needed more carrying capacity, since my inventory wasn’t expanding as I leveled like regular players. Granted, carrying bags on me would increase the risk when I died, but that was something I would have to deal with.
At the same time, I decided to get rid of all the miscellaneous herbs that I had picked up around Brita. The only thing that I had ever used them for was enchantment, and they wouldn’t be helpful at my current level anymore.
Hammerhead grabbed a pair of leather satchels for me, one brown and the other a dark green with a flowery pattern. “The pattern’s just for show. I tried to make a bag that had special effects, but it didn’t work.” He said with a small shrug, also handing over forty silver coins, likely my change from the trade.
I nodded my head. “In that case… the only thing left is magic stones for when I handle the enchantments. All I have on me are level twenty ones. Do you know where I can get something a bit better?”
Hammerhead chuckled. “I might not do the enchanting, but that’s a common request when people buy gear from me, so I always keep a stock. Level fifty stones are ten silver each.”
I handed over another five gold to buy fifty stones, just to be on the safe side. If I used one with every enchantment, that would just about be enough.
Hammerhead grinned, passing me the stones. “Anything else I can do for you?”
I thought about that, before shaking my head. There wasn’t anything else that I needed here. With my new Blood Leather armor set, I would be good to explore more dangerous areas. “Thanks. I’ll be sure to let you know if I have any requests in the future, if I’m in the area.”
“Add me as a friend, and you can mail in an order.” He said with a grin. I hesitated briefly, before accepting. He arched a brow when he saw the Fallen tag next to my name, but either didn’t know what it meant or just decided not to question it.
Thanking him again, I turned to leave with Diane. Just as she waved, turning to leave, I called out to her. “By the way… would you be interested in joining a guild?”
Diane’s steps suddenly stopped, and she turned back to look at me in surprise. “You have a guild?”
“Not yet, but a couple of players I know are about to start one. Or, given the time, they may have already done so. The purpose of their guild is to build a city where Failures and those affected by malicious player actions can live safely. You don’t have to stay in the city if you join the guild, and they’ve already given me that assurance as well.”
Diane seemed to think about it for a moment, before nodding her head. “Let me know where to go when the guild is ready to receive an invite.” She said, before turning and leaving.
With that out of the way, I made my way to the local bank, depositing all but five gold of my money, as well as the skill books that I was holding onto and my contract scroll. Thanks to this, a great portion of my inventory was cleared up. Now… all that was left was for me to endure another week of Kelly’s training.
