Fantasy World Online II: Second Chance

Day 14-22: Balt

On his second day in Second Chance, Balt went to the sword shop again. He was told that the best Weapon smith in town was the owner of the "Dusty Ore" workshop who provided the city's soldier with weapons.

Balt went to the Dusty Ore and unlike everyone else who had asked to learn the craft, demanded a chance to become the craftmaster's apprentice.
Like all others he was told to go to the nearby mine and retreive ores.
With the pick axe provided he pounded at the mine walls for hours on end, picking up every fragment that fell. he especially targeted areas that looked rich with metal.
As he hit the walls he did not care for the pain that he felt in his hands and arms or the hunger that beffell him and kept mining.
When night fell outside he was still mining and only stopped when his timer set off.
On the next day he stopped by the river and exanged a quarts stone he had mined for thirteen fishs. He ate one right away befpre returning to the mine and grabbing his pickaxe again.
For six more days the sound of a pickaxe could be heard coming from the mine.

At the end of the eigth day of mining he had gathered a large amount of copper, tin and brass ores, many iton ores and around thirty quart stones.
He exanged a quart stone against the location of a small cart and loaded the everything on it before returning to the weapon smith.

When he presented the ores to the clerc a bewildered expression came upon the man. Aparently he had mined more than necessary. The burly man then started telling Balt about the types of metal that existed. Balt listened intently as it was his first lesson in the art of weapon smithing.

The most brittle metal used in sword manufacturing was Copper. It was used as money but also for swords, armors and many daily items such as cups and forks.
Then came Tin and Brass. Individually they were not efficient but once smelted together they produced an alloy called Bronze that was easy to forge and did not rust as fast as iron. It was the most common weapon material.
Iron was usually reserved to intermediary weapon smith as it was a difficult metal to obtain. it was difficult to forge but much more durable and resistant than Copper or Bronze. Its sole demeanor was the need to entertain the blade regularly to prevent it from rusting.
Then came steel. It was the metal every Smith in Last City wished to use. The secret to its production was jamously guarded by the few who had discovered it as it had made their fortune.
The other two metals available for forging were silver and gold but they were much too weak and soft to produce quality weapons and were
More used to apply decorations on the blades and hilts than to make the blade itself.

When the long lesson was over, balt and his new menthor brought the ores back in. Balt was led to the back of the shop where several forges, anvil and workbésh were available. already present, a dozen players were hitting at red metal bars or heating them up while chatting between each other.

"I cant believe this is so difficult. Smithing i too complicated. The developers were nuts when they made the system!"
"I agree. I've been hiting on that bar for hours and it still has to change shape!"
"Might change my decition..."
"hey pass me this hammer. It weights more, maybe it will accelerate things."

Balt paid no attention to the players and focused on what the smith in charge was telling him.

"Here, this will be your spot. From now on you will put all of your material in in this chest. Its a magic chest so dont wory about the volume or the weight. Put everything you mined in it, then come to find me when you want to continue your formation.

Balt shoved every single ore in the chest, filling it to the maximum to close it and open it again to find it empty of the rock. A scroll had replaced them. As he red what was written on it, it read "unidentified Ore (472), grable (283), quarts stones (46)". When he saw the word grable, Balt thought that he wanted them gone from the chest and suddently after a purple flash of light the chest was filled with stones again with the words "grable (283)" were gone from the scroll.
Understanding that those were the grable, Balt pulled them out of the chest and put them back in the cart. He pulled it to the exterior of the village and turned the cart upside down, therefore emptiing it of its content.
He brought the cart back to his owner and went back to the smithy.

"Boy, now that you know the different metals that exist, you need to be able to differentiate them. Here is an ingot of
each. Go and iddentify the ores you mined. Come back when your done."

So Balt went to sit next to his personal chest and started looking at each ore
One after an other. Unaware of the identify fonction he compared the ores to the ingots one after an other and started doing different piles, one for each type he saw and another for those he did not reconise. when he was done he went over each pile again. By the fourf time, he instinctively knew which was which and the unidentified pile of ore was depleated.

The smith came to him from time to time, checking if he was doing things right. When he saw that Balt was finaly done he said that he would need to go over the piles before he cleared Balt, so he took the ocation visit the city again.

Somehow people kept looking at him with whide eyes. He was blind to the cause until a player wearing the guards robe came to him and handed him a soap.

"Your covered in dirt and you smell. Go to the river and wash before another guard sees you and decides to arestnyou for polyting the village's air."

Balt did as he was told. Efectively, when he deeped himself into the water it turned brown. The same thing happened when he washed his clothes.