Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

Thomas awoke in his bed inside of The Swans Nest and stretched. Even though he had logged out it felt as if his body had slept for the night. This made him wonder just what happened to his avatar when he logged out? Did it vanish? Did it just lay there unconscious? Did it phase out partially? He honestly didn't know yet. Laying back down on the bed to relax for a moment he opened his character sheet and was about to spend some experience to increase his stats, but stopped himself.

"Wait a moment. Last time I pushed Power and Endurance past ten I was wracked with pain and knocked out for hours. Will that happen again if I increase Agility and Magic past ten?"

Frowning to himself he looked at his character sheet and let out a long sigh, "Dammit. I should have increased my attributes before logging out! If I increase my attributes and pass out again I'll waste a huge portion of the day. I'm not as good at tailoring as other professions so I can't afford to waste a single moment."

Thomas sighs longingly as he looks at the 1,213 experience he has but was too afraid to spend. With that much experience, he could easily increase his attributes by a fair amount and make himself stronger. Well. Maybe it doesn't really matter for today. After all how strong do you need to be to push a needle through fabric anyways? It's just... it was a fundamental part of the gaming experience to grow stronger! It felt wrong to not be getting stronger with so much experience to spend!

Just thinking about it nonstop would just put himself into a bad mood, so Thomas got out of bed, got dressed for the day, and headed down to the dining room to enjoy a nice breakfast. As he was eating he double checked his remaining funds, 137 gold. Enough to stay at The Swans Nest for another five days. In that time he would need to earn a bit of extra money. Hopefully, he would get paid for his work at the tailor shop.

After his breakfast, Thomas headed out and found a guard to ask for directions to Zella's Fashions. With simple directions, it didn't take him long to find the building. It was on the same main street as Hekrin's shop and Rock's Armory so it wasn't too hard to find. It seemed like this really was the center of the artisan district and most of the shops were pretty close together. Zella's Fashions was actually right next door to the shop he'd bought his spare set of clothing at, he just hadn't noted it before.

After entering the shop, Thomas was greeted by an older woman with graying hair. Despite her age, it was easy to tell that she would have been a real beauty just a few decades ago. The woman smiled at Thomas, her bright blue eyes practically glittering, "Welcome to Zella's Fashions. Is there anything I can help you find?"

Thomas smiled at the woman and nodded, "Actually, I'm looking for madam Zella. I was hoping to learn the art of tailoring from her."

The woman's smile immediately vanished and was replaced with a frown, her eyes turned a bit frosty, and her warm tone turned a little colder, "I'm Zella." She looked Thomas up and down for a moment as her frown deepened, "If you're just another pretty boy muscle head coming here to gawk at the girls while pretending to want to learn from me, you can go ahead and leave now."

Thomas raised his hands defensively and waved them back and forth, "No no. I swear I am only here to learn tailoring and improve it to rank 25. I have no ulterior motives for being here."

Zella studied Thomas for a bit longer before letting out a sigh, "We shall see. Follow me."

Zella turned to her right and entered a door into a side room, beckoning for Thomas to follow her. Once inside of the room Thomas understood her skepticism. There was a veritable bevy of beauties in the room working on various pieces of fabric. The only other man was slightly overweight and was very clearly gawking at the woman as he barely put effort into what he was doing. Seeing the man Zella yelled at him, "Drukker! I swear if you don't stop gawking at the girls I am going to kick you out onto the street and ban you from my shop. I've already warned the other seamstresses of your lechery so don't expect any of them to take you in either!"

The man, Drukker, jumped and immediately focused in on his work trying his best to not piss off Zella any further. For her part, Zella just huffed in displeasure and turned to one of the girls, "Daisy please watch the counter for a while. I've got another 'gentleman' to teach. If he turns out as bad as that other otherworlder, Drukker, I'm going to ban all otherworlder men from learning here in the future."

The woman, Daisy, nodded and headed out the way Zella and Thomas had entered. After she departed Zella lead Thomas over to the same table Drukker was working at and gestured for Thomas to sit down, "Let's get this over with."

Zella pulled out a small section of cloth, a paper pattern, a coal pencil, a needle, some thread, two leather thongs, and a pair of scissors, setting them all in front of Thomas, "I'm going to have you make a simple money purse. Just follow my instructions to the letter."

Zella pointed to the paper pattern. It was a shape reminiscent of an hourglass with a slightly thicker center, "Use the pencil to trace the pattern onto the cloth."