The Dragon's Wrath: Ashes of the Fallen (30 page)

"Anytime, Selene."

Chapter 61: Stranger, Danger?

(Saturday, September 11th Game Day / Friday, March 26th Real Day)

A few days had passed as Selene appeared to have returned to normal, with her behavior more consistent with how it had been in the past. Between her and Katherine, the two of them seemed to be getting along just fine as they managed their own affairs apart from me.

The Loyalty Bar had received a slight bump from both women, as Selene's Affection for me rose slightly after talking things out while Katherine's went up in both. Her Trust Bar raised due to the Rattanorv incident and Affection saw a boost from general discourse. All in all, I was making good progress with my Companions.

Unfortunately, I had yet to reach the threshold for Soul Link with Katherine, though it actually wasn't too far away. A few more adventures, a little more Trust building, and maybe some flirtatious behavior, and it was within reach.

Well, that was for another time.

Without anything in particular needing to be done at the village, I had taken the day off and decided to go on a hunt. In search of new creatures roughly fifty miles to the southeast of Dragon's Breach, my travels had thus far proved fruitless with only a wolf to show for it. One lousy wolf in fifty miles, and it was a mangy one, at that.

In the midst of skinning a hide, I was suddenly startled when a wild beauty appeared through the bush! She had stumbled forward and fell to the ground in an awkward display of coordination, or lack thereof. Brushing the leaves off her clothes and plucking the ones stuck in her hair afterwards, she then patted her knees and stood up.

Watching the scene unfold before me while kneeling down next to the corpse of the wolf, with hands halfway through the process of carving the carcass into something usable, I was completely thrown off guard. My hands and arms dripping with blood, all I could muster was a weak smile as I realized the graphic nature of the scene.

It took her a second to realize I was there, as her eyes traced the ground up to the carcass and then up towards me. Shocked with what she saw, she took a step back before realizing I had already seen her.

"Uhh hi?" she said awkwardly, in an attempt to break the ice.

"Hello," I replied as I turned away and went back to work.

Continuing to carve up the carcass, I ignored the girl that was standing a few feet away. The only problem was, she didn't move or say anything else.
Ah, where are my manners
, I thought to myself.

"Welcome to the North," I added onto my previous greeting with no shame felt.

Returning to my work with the hopes that she would turn around and head in the opposite direction, I was soon disappointed when she continued to stand there silently.

Separating the meat from the hide caused a small piece of fat to flick off into the distance as the girl jumped back in disgust, clearly too close for her comfort. "Um, I'm kind of lost," she explained with slight hesitation as she slowly backed away from me, clearly unsure of what to make of the entire situation. "Do you think you could, when you're done with your work that is, uh, like show me the way to the nearest town?"

After finishing her statement she made a cutesy pose and winked, trying a bit too hard for my tastes. Not bothering to stop slicing, I simply turned my head slightly so as to eye her better. Wild beauties didn't randomly appear in the depths of a forest, especially one this far north.

I was a bit suspicious of her, as I was of all strangers that traveled out here.

Her gear was suspect, too.

Trendy brown leather boots that flared out with lace boot cuffs at the edge, leather short-shorts dyed blue, and a white linen halter top shirt to complete the look. Sleeveless with an abundance of cleavage being shown, along with the bare midsection, all screamed foreigner. Foreign, to the North that is… she had a modern style, more appropriate in the Central Kingdoms.

Suspicious, this one is
, I said silently while nodding to myself in agreement.

"Ah, straight west of here there is a village but you won't find much that way," I began to explain as I looked for the position of the sun. "You won't make it before nightfall, not to any village honestly. Did you have a place in mind?"

Standing up and walking over to a small stream, I cleaned my tools and hands and turned my attention back towards the fashionable beauty that had mysteriously appeared. A redhead with a large chest, ample curves, and a barely-there six-pack while retaining some more exotic features, especially the eyes… yeah, she was heavily altered.

There was no doubt in my mind about that.

That wasn't her real appearance, not by a longshot.

"Oh, is that like, how it is?" she stated more than asked as she started to tap her chin repeatedly with her index finger. Then, as if she had come to a conclusion, she placed a closed-fist into an open hand with a sort of
ah-hah!
feeling to it. "So like… if the nearest town is that far, where are you going to spend the night?"

Letting out a singular muffled
ha
, I smiled at her while thinking of her angle.

She wanted to tag along, and I guess that wasn't terrible.

"Well, I was in the middle of a hunt," I replied honestly while rolling up the fresh hide. "I don't mind you tagging along, but I'll have to ask again, where are you going?"

"Secret! hehe," she giggled out, oblivious to the fact that I wasn't buying it.

"Yeah, well head west for about thirty miles and you'll run into the village of Andal, it's a small one but the largest of its kind around here. Further north are the Triangle Villages, I don't suggest wasting your time going there though. You won't find anything except a handful of shacks and poor villagers."

"Can't I just uhm, tag along with you? You said that was okay, right?" she asked seriously, while locking eyes with me. "You aren't from those villages, right?"

She was either a conniving individual or sharper than she appeared, or both.

I wasn't sure, but I didn't trust her.

"I was from one of the Triangle Villages, actually," I answered honestly yet again, if not a bit misleading in practice though. "That's why, as a fellow player, save your time."

Wishing to distance myself from the girl, I grabbed my pack and began my trek to the east. I wanted to find new creatures, not new women. Plus, she threw me for a loop, being so trendy and alone this far north was peculiar. A girl like her was almost expected to have a flock of friends or male followers lingering nearby.

She had that sort of air about her.

"Ah! You aren't leaving me are you!?" she yelled as she started to hurriedly walk after me. Catching up to me, she puffed her cheeks as she looked at me, feigning some anger as she playfully hit me on the shoulder.

"That's not fair! You said I could tag along!"

Glancing to the side as I continued to walk, I started to grin a little.

I felt like teasing her.

"Oh, but I'm not heading to a town dear," I said with a fake frown.

"Not ever?" she questioned with a pout, clearly practiced with her responses.

"Hmm, not for a while, no," I said with a shrug. "I'm going to hunt… for at least a day, maybe two if I feel like it, then I'll consider heading to a village."

"But I'm lost!" she exclaimed while throwing her hands up in the air like a child. "Won't you like, show little ole me the way? Take me with you; it's scary out here alone!" Pouting and pretending to be sad, she was a master at her craft. If I didn't have more attractive women waiting for me in Dragon's Breach, I might have been tempted.

"Ah I don't know. You don't really want to head north, trust me."

"But I do, I really do!" she stated with a playful fit. "There's a really fancy village near the mountains, and by a river, I saw a picture of it! There were tons of NPCs in there, like a hundred!"

Eh, this girl was giving me a headache.

And she was troubling me.

The picture she was talking about was one and the same… the one they showed at the Alpha and Beta Meeting. The one that Emily put up for all to see… and the one that made me angry enough to stop attending.

Where did this girl hear or see it?

And why would she want to travel alone, a hundred some miles, to see a village.

That made no sense at all to me.

"Sounds like fantasy to me hun, you sure it wasn't photoshopped?" I asked with a confused expression, attempting to cause some misdirection.

"No way, it exists, it's been verified like for real."

"Well, even if it did exist, why would you want to head there?"

She took a second to think as her index finger made its way toward her chin. Tapping repeatedly as if it were a bad habit, she eventually stopped and answered me with measured confidence.

"I want to move to the North," she finally stated.

Nodding at herself, she seemed pleased.

"Yeah? Well, again, welcome to the North miss," I said with a slight bow.

"Hehe, thank you thank you, I'm Milly by the way, pleasure to meet you!"

Laughing at myself for getting caught up in her pace, I gave in.

"Likewise, the name's Sigurd."

Extending a hand, she took the offered handshake and returned a cheerful smile.

"So you're going to take me, yeah?" she asked immediately while still holding onto my hand. "I won't let go until you say yes!"

"We'll see about that, I might make my way north in a day or two."

"That's a promise. I'll hold you to it mister!"

Ah, this girl.

I wasn't sure what to do with her.

Oh well, if she tagged along for a day or two and still wanted to move North, I couldn't stop her. I would need to increase the player population anyways, if I wanted to turn my little village into a metropolis. It was a bit soon to start, since my infrastructure wasn't completely sound yet, but it couldn't hurt to start.

The more the merrier, or so they say.

Chapter 62: Infrastructure

(Saturday, September 18th Game Day / Sunday, March 28th Real Day)

An entire week of hunting out in the forest wasn't enough to deter my wild follower as she continued to tag along, logging off when I was done for the day and logging back on around the time I said I would be on. She was persistent and a bit psychotic for someone I had only recently met.

"Hey Milly, are you ready to go?" I asked her as she was switching out of her battle attire and into her casual trendy clothes.  

"All done! Let's go!" she yelled back with that constant enthusiasm that never seemed to leave her. We were heading back to Dragon's Breach now, even though I was a bit hesitant to bring strangers with me. It was hard to delay anymore anyhow, seeing as she had been following for me almost eight real-days now.

If she wasn't serious, she would have left by now.

We weren't too far from the village, as I slowly circled back while hunting in order to cut down the travel time. An hour's walk was all it would take, despite the massive bag of furs on my back. 

"Hehe so we finally get to see it?" she asked with an innocent grin spread across her face. "And you said you didn't know of it, humph!"

"I believe your words were, 'secret,'" I countered with a deadpan delivery.

"Oh hey, no, girls can have secrets," she replied seriously. "It's not right for a guy to keep a secret like that, that's just a lie, you lying old man!"

"What, I'm not even more than-" I cut myself short, not wanting to call her age into question. That was a cardinal rule: all girls over twenty were twenty-one as far as I was concerned. "I'm not that old, kiddo."

"Eh eh, what were you going to say?" she teased as she leaned forward while walking, sticking her tongue out at me. "You aren't even more than, what?"

"I'm not that much older than you, you know."

"No way! That's a lie, again! You've got white hairs already!"

She started dancing around me while pointing and laughing. It was a playful laugh, but there was some truth to her words. My face didn't look that old nor did my body, though my hair certainly was a bit mixed.

Thanks, health issues.

The physical stress had taken its toll.

"Not all of us can be so blessed with youth such as yours," I said suavely, more sarcasm than face value. "Ah, what it is to be young, one can dream!"

"Hey, you're not that old now," she cut in somewhat seriously.

With a tilt of her head, she tapped her chin a few times before nodding and continuing on. Dragon's Breach was within visual range now, barely, but it was there.

The wooden walls could be seen along the base of the mountain, with a small amount of smoke billowing from the blacksmith's hut. They were likely quite busy, which was a good sign going forward. Another fifteen minutes went by relatively quickly as we walked along the water's edge.

The river was flowing a bit slower now than it was in the spring and early summer, and there weren't quite as many fish as before either. Though, to say the river was slow or that there was a lack of fish would be extremely misleading. I could probably throw a chain lightning into the river and watch as two dozen fish float to the surface.

Yeah, there was no lack here.

"Wow, so that's it," said Milly as she leaned forward slightly and stretched her hand out, placing it across her brow to help her see. It was comical, something you would see out of a cartoon, but it fit her character.

She was a character.

"I'm running ahead old man!" she yelled as she took off in full sprint.

Letting her go, I decided to hail Selene to warn her.

"Hey Selene, we've got a guest, watch her if you will, she's a strange one."

"Oh, is that you Sigurd, this communication magic is quite awkward," replied Selene with a fairly straight tone of voice. "I'll be on the lookout, a she, you said?"

"Yeah, she was wandering the forest, followed me home like a lost puppy."

"I'm sure Katherine will be pleased to know you've brought home another woman," she casually admonished. "I'll let her know, as well."

Ah, women.

Heading over to the blacksmith's hut, I found Ansgar hard at work at the forge while Enok was busy sharpening an axe with a small grinding stone. Along the wall of the small shop was an assortment of two-handed axes of varying lengths, all ready to be used at a moment's notice.

"Pardon the intrusion fellas," I said as I knocked on the edge of the doorframe.

Enok looked up first, and greeted me enthusiastically, "Sir Sigurd! You'll be happy to hear that we've completed all of the axes for the warriors, I'm just now adding some finishing touches, and we'll hand the rest out by mid-day."

"That's great to hear my boy," I replied with a pat on his shoulder.

"Ah Sigurd, this one here is an experiment, but I think you might be interested in it," stated Ansgar while continuing to face away, busy shaping the orange-glowing iron.

Looking closer, the shape looked as if he were attempting to make a double-sided axe. More fantasy than practical, I questioned its effectiveness but the quality thus far was looking rather spectacular.

That's when I realized he wasn't talking about the axe.

"Ansgar, that's steel there," I pointed out, after realizing he had a steel sword lying on a table. Completely shocked by it, I quickly picked it up to examine the specifications. It was an [Experimental Eutectoid Steel Sword]… which meant, they were to a degree, successful with the crucible. It was of a [Decent Quality - Uncommon Grade] and certainly better than any pattern-welded sword that filled the market.

All of those iron swords people were currently using were pattern-welded, with small bits of steel mixed in or even in some cases, only iron. They were weak weapons, not worth using in actual battle. What steel was there was an accident, formed from the process by an addition of carbon.

Bloomery iron was what was used during the middle ages, as iron ore was heated with charcoal, also known as wood, in a small furnace until the slag melted off. Iron melted at around 1550-degrees Celsius while slag, trace minerals that weakened the metal, turned to liquid a little after 1100-degrees.

It was a complex process, what with needing to introduce carbon with the iron oxide, and of an appropriate amount in order to create usable steel. Eutectoid steel was around 0.8% carbon, while if the iron absorbed more than 2.0% carbon, it would melt at the same temperature of the slag.

If the iron did melt, it ended up as cast iron, which was, for most points, useless as a weapon. Cast iron could be shaped but it couldn't be forged, was extremely brittle, and was generally left for basic tools and items, such as nails.

There was a lot of cast iron lying around the shop, a lot of it.

Though what mattered, was they were able to get it down.

This was a usable weapon, and was worth a lot of money right now.

As a comparison, pure iron has a hardness of around one-hundred on the Vickers Pyramid Hardness scale. Eutectoid steel was around two-hundred and fifty VPH, which was a considerable improvement. Quenching the sword could triple or quadruple the hardness too, but at that point tempering was required to reduce the hardness and increase the toughness of the blade.

The problem was that the brittleness increased with the hardness, at least with these low-level production methods. We weren't quite at real crucible steel yet, nor were we at Damascus steel, but it looked as if he had reached the very beginnings of the former.

Oh man, was I excited.

Next was Hypereutectoid Steel, at 1.2% to 1.6% carbon content, true Crucible Steel.

I was giddy.

"Ansgar, Enok, you made this with the crucible method?" I asked, unable to wait for them to finish their current work. "Can you replicate it? The process, can you repeat it?"

"I already have," replied Ansgar with a stern voice full of confidence. "This axe here, is steel my liege. We're still experimenting with getting the amounts right but we're at a thirty-percent success rate at the moment. In time, we'll have it sorted."

Clapping my hands together, I wanted to give the man a high-five and a hug and a bonus of beautiful women and a fine feast. They had done it, they had moved the needle. We weren't far from being so far ahead of the game that it wouldn't be a lie to call this land, the capital of advanced weaponry. Money was sure to come, trade, everything.

Enok spoke up next, "I've modified the crucible slightly, to better fit our production methods, I think, give me a month, and I can have it working as intended."

Hah, there was no need to curb my enthusiasm now.

Damn, we were going to be rich.

Good bye, fragments of bloomery steel that could only be pattern-welded onto the edges of swords and axes and spear tips and hello, relatively solid single piece steel constructions!

"Good work men, we'll throw a feast for your accomplishments here," I bellowed proudly while patting Enok and Ansgar on the shoulders. "Damn good work."

Letting myself out as they went back to work, I was in the best of moods.

I wasn't sure if anything else could top the feeling at the moment.

My spirits were soaring far above the clouds.

"Hey guy," messaged Ellieby with rather peculiar timing.

"Hey Ellieby!!" I replied somewhat overeagerly due to my uncontrollable happiness.

"Uh whoa, you're excited," she followed up with a light smile as she enabled the video imaging. "I've got good news for you."

"Yeah?" I replied succinctly.

"We managed to sell everything ahead of schedule!" she declared almost shouting as she jumped and threw her hands up. "Turns out white furs are pretty popular, who woulda' thunk it? Me, that's who! Ahhahha!"

Hah, what.

I couldn't help but laugh too.

The two of us on screen, laughing almost maniacally as others stood nearby and watched, clearly visible in the background of our video call. We didn't care though; we were both traders and had made a killing.

We had a right to laugh!

"Oh man, today, must be my day," I finally said after laughing to my heart's content.

"Right?" she stated after catching her breath. "Anywho, I was able to get the items you wanted, send the next shipment when you're ready, sooner the better!"

"Ah, let's clarify this time," I said clearly, not wanting to have any confusion this time around. "I can send about a quarter of that first shipment right now, and if you get some solid connections… I might have something special, weapon wise, in the future."

"Wait, weapons?" she questioned.

"Yeah, that's a secret for now, give me some time and I might surprise you."

"Okay, well, send what you've got, and I'll send money and goods back!"

Closing the video call, my day had surprisingly improved.

More so than I thought was possible.

Walking around the village, I was informed by the villagers that Milly had been running around talking to everyone. With that information in hand, I decided to turn around and head back to the blacksmith's hut.

"Hey Ansgar, Enok, keep that sword and axe a secret for now would you, we've got outsiders here, don't want them to learn anything," I explained quietly as the two listened intently.

A single nod from both of them sealed their agreeance.

I went back out into the town, with happiness on my mind.

Prepping the longship for a second voyage and picking a crew wouldn't be hard, but I didn't want to go on this trip. A waste of two days at least, sitting in a little boat.

That wasn't exactly my idea of fun.

A feast was necessary, yeah, that was what I wanted to focus on.

One large feast for everyone!