Chapter 66 Charitable Lady

  After the duo left the Adventurers’ Guild in Altesia, they went in search of the Smiths’ Guild. It wasn’t that hard to find, in part because every passing person on the street knew where it was, but also because the sounds of hammers on anvils could be heard from blocks away. It started as just a quiet tinkling in the background until it turned into a raucous commotion that threatened to drown out every other sound. Each of the smithies were out in the open air, with all of their walls either swung up like awnings or removed entirely now that winter was finished. The only close walled buildings, in the entire city block that was the Smiths’ Guild territory, were the Functionary and Sales buildings.

  The Functionary was a three story tall building that was only thirty feet or so wide and only a bit over thirty feet deep. It was made almost entirely out of stone and was adorned with beautifully ornate iron fittings, brackets, hinges, and sconces at every opportunity for such. That was the building Isaac and Lenna were headed to. They would worry about picking up new gear after they had arranged for someone to fix Lenna’s old set.

  The Sales building was only one story tall with a nearly flat roof. It made up for its lack of height by being just over thirty feet deep and six hundred feet long. The walls of that building were made of stone for the first eight feet but then transitioned to wood for the rest of it to save on weight and cost. Hopefully they would find Lenna a suitable sword for the next week or so in there later. It didn’t need to be great, but a good sword was necessary for someone like Lenna to apply her incredible strength properly. Sure, she could always punch and kick things with more force than anyone her size and weight would otherwise be capable of, but that force was still always distributed across the surface area of her fist, elbow, knee, or boot. An ax, sword, pick, or spear would allow her to deliver the force in a way that truly mattered. Lenna had mastered all of those weapons to a sufficient degree but she preferred her hand-and-a-half longsword for the versatility it offered.

  Isaac pushed open the door to enter the Functionary. There were two well off looking merchants waiting in line behind a woman who had looked like she had walked there from Safeharbor without resting. Her dark hair was dirty and matted, her boots looked like they were about to fall apart, and the seams of her shirt and pants were frayed so much that Isaac was surprised the clothes stayed together at all. She had an apron draped over her left arm and a toolbelt in her left hand that had four different small hammers and half a dozen dyes in its loops.

  “Miss, I can’t admit you into our guild without some proof that you are capable of using a forge in the first place.” The middle aged woman behind the reception desk explained. “If you had made your own tools, then I could count that, but as it stands, and please do not take offense to this, it looks like you stole them out of the back of a wagon. They are the only things on your person that don’t need a good washing. Get yourself cleaned up, buy some iron from the Sales building, pay a Guild Smith to borrow his forge for an hour, and come back with something that proves that you can use your tools. We can’t just let some random person off of the street use a live forge with Guild Tools unsupervised and, I’ll be frank with you miss, we do not have the people to waste on having someone shadow you for the rest of the day.”

  “But I don’t have any money!” The road worn woman exclaimed. “I spent it all to get here!”

  Lenna held out a hand to her husband. Isaac raised an eyebrow to her in question. “Just two platinum should be enough for what she needs, right?” Lenna asked.

  Isaac shrugged. “That’s two weeks wages for a common laborer, or four copper tier bounties, so probably.” Isaac replied and handed her a pair of platinum coins.

  “Listen, miss, there are plenty of ways to make money. Go find one of them and then do what I just advised you. You don’t have to be a smith today, you can be one in a week, or a month, or even next year. You aren’t even middle aged yet. Take your life one step at a time.” The receptionist told the young would-be smith.

  “Excuse me.” Lenna’s voice cut through the silence, right before the young woman shouted something else. The surprise third interlocutor paused the conversation long enough for Lenna to begin: “I am a double platinum level adventurer, and I’ll give you two platinum coins if you promise to charge me two less platinum coins for every work order I place through you.”

  Isaac couldn’t hide his grin at Lenna’s quick thinking. He was not one for charity, especially when the older woman was right, the younger one could just go work at an inn or something for a few weeks and then begin her career as a smith, but Lenna had turned it into a business opportunity. A simple twenty gold off of each purchase from a young smith was not likely to amount to much in the long run, but it would still help the young smith and at least pay for itself. All they had to do was order something disposable through her at a later date and the two platinum coins would come right back into their pocket. A copper saved was a copper earned and all that.

  “Really?! You’d do that?!” The smith whirled around on Lenna. Apparently the young woman had almost no shame. Usually one would expect someone with any pride at all to at least pretend to push back at, what looked like at first glance, charity.

  “I expect a signed contract.” Lenna told the woman. “Double platinum level adventurers burn through gear like a forge does coal. I will be needing plenty of it.”

  It was then that the young smith actually took in Lenna and the look of utter horror could not be understated. The young smith did not look at Lenna’s face or skin tone in the slightest, but purely at the paladin’s armor. The paint was gone, reduced to ash, and the armor’s damage was so severe that she doubted that it could be saved. “What in Blade, Guardian, and Klestyen’s name happened to that armor?!” The smith cried out as she took an unconscious step towards Lenna and leaned in to get a better look.

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  “A Blade of Oblivion, actually, three of them.” Lenna corrected herself.

  “The ‘ARCHMAGE’S WORLD CLEAVING BLADE’ did this?!” The smith screeched. “Three of them?!”

  Lenna winced through the smith’s volume. “Yes.” She confirmed. “Now, about our deal?”

  “What?” The smith started. “Oh, yes, I’ll take it!” She agreed and held out her hand to shake Lenna’s.

  “Hold on there, miss smith, I’ll give you a platinum coin for a mere five gold off of every item purchased.” One of the merchants tried to cut in.

  “I’ll take that deal too!” She exclaimed.

  The other smith shook his head and put hand on his forehead. It was suddenly very apparent that the young woman had zero business sense whatsoever. Over the course of the next five minutes, the receptionist allowed the merchants to use her pen and paper in the penning of a few contracts. Both smiths and Lenna all ended up giving the young smith one platinum coin in exchange for five gold off of every future purchase. Lenna had dropped down to what the merchants offered mostly because she felt like she was taking advantage of the young smith. She had originally expected the smith to try and counter-offer so she had never actually expected to get a full twenty gold off of each purchase, even if that was what Isaac had been hoping for as soon as he had heard the words out of her mouth. Once that was sorted out, the smith received her three platinum coins and hurried off to do what the receptionist had told her. Once she was gone, the merchants then got their turn speaking with the receptionist and Lenna returned to Isaac's side.

  Isaac and Lenna didn’t really pay attention to what the merchants were doing but it apparently had something to do with sourcing tools and/or weapons. None of it really mattered to the duo so they just settled in to wait until it was their turn. In all, they were waiting for around half an hour for both merchants to be done until it was their turn.

  “And what can I do for the charitable Lady and her Lord?” The receptionist asked Lenna and Isaac in turn.

  “I am in need of legendary smiths who are capable of repairing armor older than they are, even if they are elves.” Lenna explained.

  “And I need mythril scales to take the place of the dragon scales that were destroyed. If the broken ones could be repaired with mythril as well that would be all the better.” Isaac added. “In addition, Lenna needs a sword that will hold up against an angry Gia Elemental.” Isaac had never actually seen such an elemental being but he remembered Fable talking about one of his swords being eaten by one.

  The receptionist nodded. “As expected of a pair of double platinum adventurers, you need only the best available.” She gave them a rueful grin. “The only person who I would trust to handle that armor, will be busy for at least the next ten days.” She explained. “Even then, from just the damage that I can see, I cannot imagine it will take him less than a month to fix it. Even longer if any of the enchantments need to be touched up. We would have to contact the Artificers’ Guild and have one of the teachers from the academy come to us in order to do that. You would be lucky to see the armor again in two months, though I must say, I have never heard of armor capable of standing up to a Blade of Oblivion before so it might take even longer.”

  “The armor could not stand up to a Blade of Oblivion.” Lenna replied. “That is why it is in such a state. Nothing is capable of standing up to a Blade of Oblivion.”

  “I see.” The receptionist said and eyed Lenna with a bit more curiosity. The dozens of cuts in the armor meant that she had narrowly avoided being gutted by a shard of space at least that many times, while wearing heavy armor, and had somehow managed to keep from losing any pieces of the armor set.

  “What about the other requests?” Isaac brought the receptionist back to the topics at hand.

  “There should be a sword suitable to your needs in the back of the Sales building. There is a section dedicated specifically to platinum level adventurers and up, Altesia is home to the main guild branch of the Adventurers’ Guild after all.” The receptionist informed them. “As for your dragon scale armor, there are a few people capable of working with that in Altesia. One of whom will need to work on the Lady’s plate armor. The other two are busy with one thing or another but I will let both of them know what the task is and whose armor it is. I am sure at least one of them will be willing to drop everything so they can fix the Lord of Darkness’s armor.”

  “I had a feeling earlier, but you actually recognized us at first glance. That’s surprising.” Isaac commented.

  “Indeed I did, my Lord.” She said with a seated bow. “We few Smiths’ Guild Receptionists make sure to stay apprised of all platinum level and higher adventurers. You make the best customers and, if I am to be frank with you, double platinum level adventurers are not likely to die any time soon. If you survived the trek to level sixteen, then not only are you recognized as future Adventurers’ Guild, Guild Master material, but you are also probably powerful enough that few things will have a real shot of putting you down for good.”

  “That is a fair assessment.” Isaac agreed. “But will these smiths really know who we are?”

  “Oh most certainly.” The receptionist replied. “Word of your exploits in Port Vespera, Alten, as well as your meeting with our most glorious monarchs have traveled far and wide.”

  “Nothing of armies of undead and drow militaries crushed under foot?” Isaac asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Pardon?” The receptionist replied in question.

  Isaac shook his head. “What happens in the Innerworld stays in the Innerworld it seems.” He said more to himself than to the receptionist. “Anyway, thank you for handling this.”

  “Being the middleman between smiths and clients is our job.” She explained. “No one wants to deal with a sleep deprived smith on a bad day and no smith wants to be interrupted while hard at work.”

  Isaac nodded. “Makes sense.” He replied. “So, what should we do with the armor? Since it is worth at least a quarter of a million gold combined, even in this state, it probably shouldn’t just be left out in the open.”

  “It is as you say.” The receptionist agreed. “I will need to know wherever you are staying for the time being and we will send a message to you when the smiths in question will be needing your gear. I hope you understand that the cost of these repairs is entirely up to the smith in question. If they do attempt to charge you more than you think is strictly professional, you may file an appeal here and take it up with our Guild Leader. In the worst case, you can take this the entire way to Court but we try to handle any problems in house, you understand, it is bad for our reputation if clients start taking smiths to Noble Court over price gouging accusations.”

  Isaac nodded. “That is fine. As long as it is done well and in a reasonable time.” He replied. Isaac left the name of the inn across the street from the Adventurers’ Guild’s entrance, which was a common one for adventurers who were not staying in the city for more than a few days to a month, and told the receptionist that was where they were staying. Isaac wasn’t entirely sold on staying there yet but it was good enough until he made his decision. That place was also used to adventurers showing up at odd times looking for lodging so if they didn’t end up finding anywhere else to stay then they would naturally end up there anyway. With their armor situation more or less figured out, and the majority of the afternoon gone, the duo headed out to find Lenna a good sword. Preferably one that was a bit better than ‘decent’ but still affordable for how long it was probably going to be used.