Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

Looking over the quest, Thomas couldn't help but sigh. He would only be getting 50 experience and 10 gold per armor for four hours worth of work on each armor. That was slave wages! Shrugging his shoulders, Thomas immediately got to work on making the second leather armor. Since he had experience from making the first one he was able to move a little faster while making the second one. Thinking about the quest, while Hyde had said he wanted one more today and three tomorrow, the quest only said he had to turn in four completed pieces by tomorrow. Should he go by the words Hyde spoke or by the description in the quest?

Thomas went with his instincts and did the work his way, which happened to match the quest description. He grabbed four pieces of leather and started to trace out the various pieces of the pattern onto each of them. He spent a good twenty minutes just drawing on the leather before he managed to trace out all four sets. Once each piece had been traced completely, Thomas began to cut out the parts and wrote a number on the back of each part. He didn't want to mix up which pieces went to which set of armor so he wrote the numbers one through four onto the back of the pieces to keep them in proper sets.

After cutting out each piece, Thomas trimmed and cleaned the edges until they were buttery smooth. Hyde really did make some excellent leather! With each piece cut and cleaned, Thomas only had enough time left in the day to arrange the pieces together to mock up the final look of the armors. Stepping back to examine his work, Thomas nodded in self-approval. Hyde walked over and examined his progress before giving his own nod of approval, "Rock was right, you do think differently."

After saying goodbye to Hyde and the adorable little Teena, Thomas made his way to The Swans Nest. After enjoying his dinner he paid Martha another 162 gold to pay for the rest of the week. After dishing out the majority of his money, Thomas couldn't help but sigh at the sight of the twelve gold left in his possession. However, he knew that by the time these next six days were up he would be getting his first payment from Rock for the sales of the pseudo-magical items he and the other blacksmiths had spent the last week producing. Even if they sold them at a 'cheap' price of just 100 gold each, Thomas would still rake in 25 gold from each sale. The sales would also continue for a good while too, after all, it had been less than four real-world days since AoG had launched and more new players were still coming into the game. He was one hundred percent certain that each of them would save up to buy one of Rock's weapons when the news got out. In fact...

Darren lifted the lid to his gaming pod and moved over to his computer. He didn't plan to stay out for very long, just long enough to leave a message on the game's forums. After logging in he typed up a very simple message.

ThomasDarkrose: Breaking news! Anyone in the city of Ulvstad should find Rock's Armory! I just went in there to get some gear and you wouldn't believe what I found! They were actually selling MAGICAL weapons and armor! He didn't have a huge selection but said more would be coming. Anyone in the city and looking for an upgrade should get there before he sells out!

SwordMaster: Bullshit! No store sells magical items!

Darkest_Mage: @SwordMaster is right, I've never seen any store selling magical items. I call bullshit!

VenerableSpiritWarrior: @ThomasDarkrose, you serious? I'm in Ulvstad. I'll check it out next time I log in. But if you're lying I will hunt you down...

Darren closed the website and grinned to himself. Advertising inside of AoG would have to be by word of mouth but stepping out of the game for a few minutes to post something on the forums would just take a little time and effort while costing him nothing and spreading the news globally. All it would take would be a single person to believe him and it would snowball from there! Laughing at his own genius, Thomas went back into his pod and logged back into AoG to get some sleep before he needed to be back at Hyde's the next day.

Thomas stood before the piles of leather pieces and smiled to himself. He was feeling particularly clever this morning thanks to his stunt last night. With confidence, and perhaps a bit of cockiness, Thomas got to work. He used the glue provided by Hyde and started to glue the first layer onto each of the four pieces of armor. He was acting like a one-man assembly line as he moved from armor to armor and glued on one piece at a time. By doing so he worked at a much swifter pace than yesterday since he didn't need to wait for the bottom layer of each armor to set a bit before he could add the next layer.

He spent the day working on all four pieces of armor in tandem, building the layers up to get the somewhat modern looking armor built completely. With only an hour left in the day, Thomas glued the last piece of leather onto one of the armors to complete it.