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Book 2: Chapter 5: Quest Choices and An Old Dwarf

"Hmm..." Lone stroked his jaw as he looked at a few of the requests which had drawn his interest.

\'Quest details: Need help reroofing my new home at 21 Grinfer Avenue.

Quest issuer: Falga Orsigar.

Requirements: Enough stamina to not get tired roofing a building and a good sense of humour.

Reward: 15 copper coins and a free lunch.\'

He could gain some constructive skills which would be very helpful in situations where the fort in his Dimensional Storage wasn\'t usable or if it needed repairs when his MP was sealed like right now.

Or, assuming his MP was unsealed, being able to fix the structure with his hands would be better in his opinion as opposed to wasting valuable MP on such a trivial task.

\'Quest details: I require immediate muscle. I just need some people to look tough and keep my shop free of cunts for the open hours today. The location is Rider Smithy at Alba Square.

Quest issuer: Hoof the Blacksmith.

Requirements: A naturally intimidating look or strong-looking armour, whatever gets the job done. At least a G-ranker.

Reward: 1 silver coin per day and a 1% discount at my shop that lasts for 7-days.\'

Lone\'s thinking for this one was that he\'d be able to work on his Persuasion skill but that would require people to actually seek trouble with the store which wasn\'t a guarantee. It could end up being a boring day of standing around doing nothing, which would be a waste of his time.

\'Quest details: I\'m returning my old buddy Olim\'s corpse to the Stone near where he was born. The place is in the Farwinds and it\'s a bit blocked up by monsters. More details upon acceptance of the quest.

Quest issuer: Four-twelve.

Requirements: Non-dwarves only. At minimum a D-ranker. The monsters ain\'t too tough but there\'s a lot of them, so a weak-kneed grass-huffer ain\'t what I\'m looking for. The trip\'ll take about 4 days there and back, so I need someone who\'s fine camping out in the Farwinds.

Reward: 2 gold coins total regardless of if you\'re solo or come as a group. I\'ll tell you old war stories too if that interests you.\'

Lone didn\'t see much potential for gaining new useful skills in this one but honestly, it sounded interesting. Something about it felt... mysterious and fascinating.

He wouldn\'t accept it now since he\'d promised to stay away from fights to Soph for a while but he intended to keep it in the back of his mind and perhaps accept it if it was still available in a few weeks or so.

"I guess it has to be this one then..." Lone mumbled as he looked at the final quest which had drawn him in.

\'Quest details: My good-for-nothing assistant got done in by the Darkness spawn in the Farwinds. I need a competent steamforger to help replace him until I find a more permanent solution to his absence. I know steamforgers don\'t grow on trees so I\'ll take a blacksmith who\'s willing to learn. Location is my shop and forge at 7 Copper Lane.

Quest issuer: Master Steamforger Wilbur.

Requirements: At a minimum 1 skill related to blacksmithing and a can-do attitude.

Reward: 10 copper coins per day and 5 copper coins per order you help fulfil. Free training too.\'

"Only issue is that this is a solo quest..." Lone said to himself as he puckered his lips in thought.

"That\'s fine," Sophie said as she approached his side. "We found a quest looking for a guard. The owner of a tailor shop keeps getting robbed so he wants a bodyguard or two. We can handle that on our own. He also posted a quest looking for a short-term apprentice to help with the busy season on account of a new fashion trend popping up. Breena, you can do that. Perhaps you\'ll gain skills for fine-handling or how to wield a needle; both potentially useful for combat."

"Um, okay," Breena answered softly. She didn\'t really have a preference and the quest sounded like it involved minimal contact with people which suited her just fine.

With that decided, the three of them officially accepted their respective quests and went their separate ways.

Lone felt somewhat lonely as he went to the shop the lady from yesterday had pointed out to him, the one that sold the fantastical bicycles - steam-wheelers.

Almost immediately upon entering the building, his heart was filled with disappointment and a sour feeling. \'Fuck. How was I supposed to know steamforged shit is illegal to own if you\'re not a dwarf or a long-term resident with a licence?\'

The only saving grace was that the employees had been very understanding and offered Lone a small discount on their ordinary goods as an apology and as thanks for being polite and so enthusiastic. Little good that it did him since he only had one goal in going there.

Regardless, Lone didn\'t dwell on the matter for too long. He was above that. He knew such devices existed. In the future when his mana wasn\'t sealed, he\'d just make his own. So, instead of moping, he headed to the smithy where he was hoping to gain some employment.

He would have brought Kyuubi along with him but he was pretty confident that the environment of a smithy wouldn\'t exactly be healthy for a baby fox. Instead, he had elected to have Breena care for her today under Sophie and Soph\'s supervision.

The girl could use some physical interaction and Lone was aware that many people back on Earth were able to heal themselves mentally by playing with and just spending time with cute animals like cats, dogs and goats. It worked tremendously well on the most heinous of prisoners so why not on a little girl who had suffered the life of a sex slave?

Lone chuckled a bit dryly. \'Maybe I could use some animal-assisted therapy myself? Then again, Soph works wonders in helping me sleep and Kyuubi\'s great too for reducing my anxiety, so perhaps I\'m actually already receiving it...\'

It wasn\'t long before Lone found himself at the entrance of the steamforgery belonging to the Master Steamforger Wilbur.

Again, he was simply blown away by how... artistic the building looked. It was clearly designed to be efficient and a lot of the outer structure was obviously used during the process of steamforging and perhaps even blacksmithing but it also had a certain... flair to it. It looked appealing to the eye. Well, to Lone\'s eye at least.

After admiring the place for a little longer, Lone knocked twice on the entrance then stepped through the door. The place was a shop after all, not just a workshop. Knocking seemed polite but standing outside would only make him look like a pushover, now wouldn\'t it? Avoiding such a scene seemed like a good idea to him.

"... A tourist?" a dwarf with a long grey - almost white - beard sitting behind the storefront\'s counter asked.

Two things were of particular note when observing this Stone Dwarf; first, he was exceedingly old. He had more wrinkles than hairs, which said a lot. Second, he had little-to-no dwarven accent whatsoever.

Lone smiled and answered. "I suppose? I\'m planning to stay in Krieg Moor for at least a few months to a year so maybe short-term resident would be a more apt description."

"I see," the dwarf said with a distinct lack of interest. "Well, if ye\'re here for steamforged toys and/or gadgets, I\'m afraid I can\'t serve ye. Only full-on residents are allowed to purchase them, ye see. Ye need a licence even if ye are a full-on resident if the Stone doesn\'t flow through yer veins. Even then, it\'s no easy feat to get one."

He pointed to a poster that stated as such before his aged but still meaty finger drifted towards a set of walls littered with tools, weapons and armours. "Those, however, don\'t have a lick of steamforging in them. Feel free to peruse them at yer leisure. If any particular item catches yer fancy, give me a shout and I\'ll tell ye all about it."

He dropped his hand and coughed softly. "If ye\'ve got a specific need in mind, let me know and I\'ll point ye to the right section of the shop. If ye have a special order ye want made, my prices and available services are listed over there," the dwarf said after pointing out another poster.

"I\'m actually not here for any of that, sadly," Lone expressed as he pulled out the quest notice and showed his adventurer plate. "I\'m here to accept the temporary apprenticeship."

The dwarf raised a sceptical eyebrow. "A beastkin as dainty as ye wants to help an old steamforger like me? Forgive me if I don\'t immediately think that makes sense."

"No, that\'s quite fair. I\'m sure you were expecting a fellow dwarf, haha," Lone chuckled. "I was actually the apprentice of a dwarf in Milindo for several months. Of course, he was only a blacksmith so steamforging is new to me but I\'m rather talented in regular blacksmithing and I am more than willing to learn."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the steamforged glasses Grimsley had gifted him. "I want to be able to make stuff like this one day. I can\'t use these on account of me not having humanoid ears, you see."

"Steamforger smithing lenses, huh? Been a while since I\'ve seen some of Frodley Goldsbane\'s work," Steamforger Wilbur muttered. "Ye shouldn\'t really be showing me that unless ye\'ve got a licence."

Lone grinned. "Steamforging is very interesting to me. I\'ll risk a fine if I can convey that importance. Also, I had these before I entered the krieg. Is that illegal too?"

\'If I can\'t buy more steamforged gizmos, just make \'em. If I can\'t use MP, let\'s use my hands,\' Lone thought. \'Wait... is it illegal to make them too if you\'re not a dwarf? Uh... that\'s actually pretty likely...\'

Steamforger Wilbur gave Lone an appraising look then said, "Okay, well, what blacksmithing skills do ye have? Tell me the name, level and any sub-skills or unique mutations if ye\'ve got \'em."

\'Ah, no outright refusal. Likely not illegal then. Awesome,\' Lone thought in relief.

"Sure, I can do that." Lone pulled up the relevant skills and then said, "Blacksmithing, Intermediate Level 8. Logging, Beginner Level 7. Woodworking, Beginner Level 5."

"Hmm..." Steamforger Wilbur stroked his long beard carefully. "And yer rank?"

"D," Lone answered.

Nodding lightly, the dwarf asked, "Any resistances to fire and smoke?"

"Fire? No. Smoke created from a fire? Complete immunity. A perk of Poison Resistance," Lone explained.

"Poison Resistance? That\'s a nasty skill," Steamforger Wilbur remarked. "I guess ye didn\'t awaken twice for no reason. Which Primal does that black belong to anyway?"

Lone smiled. "None. It\'s actually an obscure curse that prevents me from using magic," Lone lied. "There are only eight Primals, after all, and none are represented by the colour black. Everyone knows that."

It seemed wiser in his mind to mix truths and falsehoods on this matter than exposing Void as a Primal. One, people likely wouldn\'t believe him. Two, he\'d be up shit\'s creek without a paddle in regards to the Church of the Primals if they did.

"A curse, eh?" The dwarf nodded softly. "It\'s a big world, ain\'t it? Okay, consider yerself hired. It wouldn\'t do me any good to keep grilling little Grimsley\'s apprentice, now would it?"

"You know Grimsley?" Lone asked in shock. "Actually, how do you even know I have anything to do with him in the first place?"

Steamforger Wilbur shrugged. "Not many dwarves living in Milindo, fewer still holding steamforged artefacts built by the great Frodley Goldsbane himself. Didn\'t little Grimsley tell ye that he had a contact here? I assumed he sent you out to get trained by someone who actually knows something about smithing. Was I wrong?"

"Yes, you were," Lone answered with a bit of a wry smile. "What a coincidence this is, huh? Of all the quests to accept, I accepted the one posted by Grimsley\'s contact."

Steamforger Wilbur snorted. "Ain\'t no coincidence, boy. Do you think that luck stat\'s a joke?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Lone asked.

"Do ye really think any other dwarf in this city would take ye on as an apprentice but me, even if only temporarily? Our methods are a tightly guarded secret. There\'s a reason the only place ye can get steamforged artefacts first hand is in a krieg. I\'m breaking so many laws by even just agreeing to teach ye," Steamforger Wilbur said with a shrug.

He threw his head back and sighed deeply. "Old Lady Luck clearly knew I just needed an assistant badly enough to accept anyone. She also knew I don\'t care much for tradition ignoring the fact my knowledge isn\'t bound to secrecy via contract magic like most."

He chuckled faintly. "Ye must have a lot of luck, boy. Well, maybe not considering the fact you\'ve awakened. Anyway, shop\'s not very busy right now as you can see. Come in back and tell me how little Grimsley\'s been doing in that cesspool of a human kingdom."

\'Ah... Okay, incredibly illegal. Good to know. There goes my squeaky clean record,\' Lone thought sarcastically.

"Uh... sure," he answered with a warm smile.

\'Is it really okay to leave the storefront empty though? Isn\'t he worried about thieves?\' Lone thought as he followed the dwarf into the back of the building.

Surprisingly, unlike Grimsley\'s now burnt to the ground smithy which held its forge in the backroom, Steamforger Wilbur instead has a cosy living room.

It was spacious and the furniture seemed imported and not of dwarven design, especially the central figure of a featureless stone woman. "Interesting statue."

Steamforger Wilbur furrowed his brow as he took a seat. "I\'ll let that slide since ye\'re likely ignorant but that\'s no statue, it\'s a corpse."

Lone\'s mind blanked for a moment before he recalled the men made of stone who were ahead of him in the line to enter the krieg. "Ah, uh, yeah, I wasn\'t aware. So... her kind solidifies upon death or something?"

"More or less, yes. Well, most species do just Ickold\'s people aren\'t made of flesh thus don\'t rot," the dwarf explained with a shrug.

"... Was she your wife?" Lone asked.

Raising an eyebrow, Steamforger Wilbur chuckled. "Perceptive. Yeah, she was. She passed away about 40-years ago if my addled mind serves me well. Surprising ye guessed right."

Lone smiled as he took a seat. "My lover is a human. Interspecial relationships aren\'t a foreign concept to me. Besides, love doesn\'t need to be restricted by physical boundaries. I can\'t imagine you had an overly steamy relationship, after all."

"Hahaha, cheeky git!" Steamforger Wilbur laughed heartily. "Well, ye\'re not wrong. Anyway, tell me about Grimsley, boy. Last I heard from him he\'d found traces of his niece in Milindo and decided to set up a smithy there to act like a hardworking citizen while he investigated her whereabouts."

"Where to even start..." Lone scratched his cheek and said, "Well, I should probably tell you that he\'s not in Milindo anymore..."