Chương 136: Chapter 134.5: The Carpa Crafter Group [INTERLUDE]

Danzaburou had learned many things since opening the Carpa Crafter Group's first proper shop in Tidemark. First of all, commercial rent existed even in virtual fantasy kingdoms, and the landlords here didn't screw around. The second was that Tidemark's inspectors took fire safety very seriously, especially when a workshop contained a forge, an alchemy station, two drying racks full of monster hides, and a cook that really liked to experiment with things better left untouched.

The third was that customers were usually wrong. Not always, of course. Some players came in with clear goals, useful materials, and enough awareness to understand the limits of early-game crafters. Those customers were treasures, and for Danza, they were like water in the desert. Most customers were, in fact, very much unlike water in the desert. They'd stand in front of his shop before opening hours, not understanding what the meaning of opening hours was, and had surprisingly unhinged requests.

"They're called Ironcap," the Berserker said, holding up a basket of grey mushrooms with the confidence of a man presenting evidence in court.

"Iron. Cap. It's in the name." Riga, who had come from the Carpa branch to help with the opening week and had already started regretting her loyalty, stared at him from behind the counter.

"They are mushrooms."

"Yes, but iron mushrooms."

"It's a simile. They are just grey mushrooms."

"Hard, grey mushrooms."

"Not particularly. They are poisonous, though." The Berserker frowned, as if poison had no place in a serious blacksmithing discussion.

"I don't want poison weapons." Kev leaned closer to Danza in the crafting room.

"Should we help?" Danza did not look away from the Ravenkin fangs laid out on his workbench.

"Riga has it under control."

"If you call almost flipping a basket full of mushrooms on a customer's head 'control'..." Riga set the basket down with exaggerated care, much to Kev's surprise.

"Sir, we can make you poison from these. Or I can ask Lio to make you some soup, although I do not recommend eating it unless you have a potion ready. I cannot make you a two-handed sword from fungi. Or rather, not from these fungi."

"What if I bring more?" Danza closed his eyes for a moment. The Carpa Crafter Group had started under a festival awning in Carpa, with five crafters, a lot of ambition, and a vague idea. They had been hoping for a handful of customers, maybe enough to get materials moving and raise their crafting skills ahead of the curve. Then Orion had walked into their lives with monster parts, coin, impossible timing, and a habit of wearing their work into situations that ended up on the forums.

After that came Cyrus, the Oakenlight Tournament, Second Wind, the civil war, and Tidemark's sudden need for repair kits, potions, armor pieces, straps, and lately, all the emergency rations the group could produce. They were respected now, but that respect came with a price. The bell above the front door rang again.

Two more players entered, wearing Second Wind's temporary blue-and-silver armband, one of them already reaching toward a display dagger despite the sign that clearly said, DO NOT TOUCH THE DISPLAY DAGGER.

"Please don't touch the dagger," Danza called automatically. The player froze with his hand an inch from the blade and looked toward the open doorway that led to the workshop.

"How did you know?"

"Experience." The other player approached the counter and placed a sealed order slip in front of Riga.

"Blue sent this."

"Of course she did," Danza muttered. Riga picked it up, read the first few lines, and gave Danza the look people gave healers when they realized the boss had a second phase through the see-through window on the wall that separated the shop from the workshop. Danza sighed, left the fangs behind, and came to the counter. The order was written in Blue's neat, terrifying handwriting.

Second Wind Supply Request Level 15 Uncommon bows x10 Stonefang Arrows x25 Repair kits x120 Weak antidotes x80 Level 15 uncommon medium armor - breastplate x20 Shields x10 Small health potions x50 BEFORE EVENING ROTATION Then he looked at the messenger.

"Did Blue, by chance, laugh while writing this?" The messenger hesitated.

"A little." She had a sense of humor; he had to admit. She was also efficient, organized, and had been running most of Second Wind's administration by herself. Danza respected her for that. She was also a very hard customer to please. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Tell Blue we can do the repair kits, antidotes, shields, and potions before the evening rotation," Danza said.

"Bows and arrows by tomorrow morning. Armor pieces tomorrow afternoon. And she has to respect the fact that the laws of time apply to us, too." The messenger nodded.

"Got it."

"Also, why does she need twenty-five arrows? Does Second Wind even have twenty-five Rangers? She knows arrows are infinite once in a quiver, right?" The Rogue, still standing near the display dagger, perked up.

"Wait, arrows are infinite?" Kev stared at him.

"Yes?"

"No way."

"Have you never talked to a Ranger before?"

"It never came up."

"How do you think they play?"

"I just thought archers had to buy arrows." Danza rubbed his forehead. It was a fair assumption, but it was still staggering to think that no one had told the poor man about arrows before.

"Bottomless quivers generate standard arrows based on the active template. If you want better arrows, someone has to make the template first. Then the quiver replicates it once it's in use."

"So you only craft one arrow?"

"One arrow," Kev nodded. The Berserker with the mushrooms chimed in.

"Can I put a sword in a bottomless quiver?"

"No," Danza, Kev, and Riga said together, disappointing him quickly. The Second Wind players left shortly after, but mushroom-man still had questions.

"What about armor?" he asked. Riga smiled too sweetly.

"From the mushrooms?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Shield?"

"You can't even use shields."

"... Boots?" Danza stepped back into the workshop before he could hear more. The back room was the real heart of the shop. The front had polished counters, display racks, order boards, and enough finished goods to prove that the Carpa Crafter Group was a well-run operation. The workshop, however, had even more going on. Hides hung from drying frames. Chitin plates sat in sorted boxes. Ingots were stacked by grade. Half-finished buckles, straps, potions, weapons, and leather panels occupied every available surface.

The alchemy station had three simmering mixtures going at once, all carefully labeled. Marek stood at the forge, hammering a shield into shape with grim focus. Lio was decanting antidotes into green vials, each one sealed with wax and placed into a Second Wind crate. Beside him, a pot of stew bubbled quietly, because he insisted he worked faster when fed and had so far been correct enough that no one dared challenge him. Kev returned to his carpentry bench, where six bow staves were already clamped and waiting.

"Good news," Danza said.

"Ten level 15 bows, and twenty-five Stonefang Arrows by the evening." Kev's hands stopped.

"Just kidding. Tomorrow morning," Danza added. Kev resumed shaping the stave.

"That's… not much better." Marek lifted the shield with tongs and dropped it into the quenching barrel. Steam burst up with an angry hiss.

"Did she ask for armor?"

"Twenty medium breastplates," Danza said.

"And ten shields. I'm assuming level 15 stuff."

"Coming up, boss!" Danza then turned to Lio.

"Do we have enough bitterleaf for eighty antidotes?"

"Riga brought extra from Carpa." Lio said.

"Why do they need this many? They asked for fifty yesterday. I'm still not finished with those."

"Poisonous field bosses, two of them, to the west of Tidemark." Kev said.

"Real nasty, too." For a few seconds, Danza simply stood there and listened to the sounds of hammer hitting metal, knife cutting through leather, Kev scraping over the wood, vials clicking, thread sliding through prepared hide, and the voices from the front room, where Riga was now explaining the difference of light and medium armor. The place was chaos, but it was theirs. Then his eyes returned to Orion's materials, and the excitement came back instantaneously. He'd craft him a breastplate like no other, for sure.

Every time that man visited, he seemed to carry half a dungeon in his inventory, and every time he left, they'd see their creations on a VOD the day after, skyrocketing their business. Although they were on a dangerous threshold now; Danza didn't know if they could even take any more work than they already did. I'll have to recruit three or four more crafters, he thought. Kev turned to him, then picked up one of the Ravenkin fangs, turning it carefully.

"Still weird that these can work as armor supports."

"Very weird," Danza agreed.

"But look here." He pointed to the thin grooves running along the inner curve of the fang. They weren't decorative. The material had natural channels, and when Danza focused, the crafting interface highlighted them in faint silver lines.

"If we split these properly and soften them with alchemical heat, they can act like internal ribs. The Prowler hide wraps around them, Webspinner thread keeps the tension, chitin protects the sides and shoulders, and Ironhide plating reinforces impact points."

"Sounds simple when you say it like that."

"Tell me about it." Kev nodded toward the front room, where a new voice was asking Riga if a Cleric could use a battleaxe if it had bonuses to Healing Rate, stopping Marek's hammer.

"I'll close the door," Kev said. The next hour disappeared into work. Crafting in Godsrealm looked simple if someone only touched the surface. Basic recipes behaved the way players expected: provide materials, choose a pattern, wait through the process, and receive a result. Quality varied based on skill, tools, and material grade, but the process was always similar. However, if you were good enough, you could introduce real mechanics into the process, turning it into something else entirely.

Recipes were not instructions so much as agreements with the System. Materials had traits that did not always appear in their descriptions. Heat, cutting angle, thread tension, order of assembly, they all mattered. And doing the actual work made the items that much better. Danza loved that. The System helped, but it did not do the work for them, and that was where the Carpa Crafter Group had their edge. They weren't just clicking buttons and chasing progress bars.

Marek knew metal, Kev understood wood, flex, and tension better than anyone Danza had met, and Riga had worked with leather before Godsrealm. Lio, Rhys, Apache, Flexxer… everyone in the group was a tradesman first, player second. Danza had spent years making costumes, armor props, and custom leather pieces for people with too much money and very specific opinions, and, as it turned out, that was excellent training for Godsrealm's playing field. The bell rang again in the front room.

A player said, "I want the Black Ranger armor." Riga asked, "Class?"

"Arcanist."

"No."

"But I want the Black Ranger look."

"You are an Arcanist."

"So?"

"You wear cloth."

"I put points into Dexterity."

"That does not—" She couldn't even finish her sentence.

"I saw a build guide." That was followed by fifteen minutes of explaining the basic rules of the game.

"Alright guys," Danza said.

"I'm gonna go work on Orion's breastplate now." He spent a good hour gathering all the materials, but before preparation, a message came in. Orion: Danza. Quick question. Have you started on the breastplate yet? Danzaburou: Not yet! Was about to begin the material prep. Why? Orion: Change of plans. Turns out I already have a level 25 rare chest piece I forgot about. Danzaburou sighed.