Kenny walked down the main merchant street of Gunnan, nodding to acquaintances and occasionally tossing out greetings.
He loved this game! It was so realistic that he could get lost in it for hours at a time. If not for his dad insisting he put in his practice, Kenny would happily waste his summer break playing it as much as possible.
Of course, the failsafe wouldn't let him do that. He still had to logout every four hours for an at least fifteen-minute break.
Since he'd sunk every penny he'd had in his savings and borrowed the rest from family for his capsule, he was fine with that. Kenny shuddered to think what would happen if he'd had an accident in his capsule.
Still, Gunnan was a great little town. It was a city of artisans. A lot of things other players had never heard of existed here.
He'd seen a workshop demo an automaton made of ironwood and leather. Then he'd watched their competitor produce one of some sort of shiny metal the following week.
Both had been using gears. Kenny still couldn't believe that they actually worked. Plus, they talked! Talked! It was limited at first, but there were outrageous genius people in the workshops who kept improving the models.
Kenny found it all fascinating.
"Hey! Hey, Kenny!" A sweet voice rang out from one of the workshop doorways.
Kenny stopped walking and turned towards the workshop. The lovely, lissome Lorelai stood there, smiling at him. An answering smile spread across his face.
He was pretty sure that if Lorelai was real and he met her, he wouldn't be able to say anything. She was gorgeous in an almost effortless way, and she didn't seem to notice.
In fact, there was a smudge of soot across one high cheekbone.
"I got that thing you wanted," Lorelai said, turning and entering the workshop.
Kenny's eyes lit up. He'd asked for a metal bar a couple of weeks earlier and had even made a down payment.
"This has to be the easiest and strangest thing yet," Lorelai commented as she picked up a two-foot long bar of metal. It fit comfortably in her hand.
"My master wants to make a sword and just needs the metal," Kenny said with a shrug.
"Hmm, then I won't say anything." Lorelai shrugged. "You do know that cloud iron and fire steel aren't really compatible, right? You're lucky Arnsen was around. He has a skill with metals."
Kenny thought that was an understatement. Arnsen could make anything metal behave. It was a rare gift he'd picked up from the older blacksmiths and metalsmiths in the town.
Kenny wasn't sure just how the so-called 'gifts' worked. The game forums didn't really talk much about the NPCs which he thought was a shame. It was obvious that they were much more interesting to talk to than the players.
Especially the ones who were consumed with raising their levels. Kenny had never really bothered with that. The NPCs just took leveling as something that naturally occurred.
Plus, ever since he'd met his master, his levels had been slowly increasing. He had no clue why. Kenny had the faintest of thoughts that there had to be a way for him to find out through the status screen, but every time the thought occurred, he became busy.
"Well, tell Master Odom that we wish him luck," Lorelai said. She pushed the heavy mass of auburn hair out of her face before frowning and pulling out a strip of well-worn leather from her pocket. "I should just cut this stuff."
"Please, don't," Kenny said before blushing. He cleared his throat at Lorelai's stunned yet pleased expression. "I mean, it's up to you. Uh, I have to go deliver the bar to Master Odom."
He fumbled out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them on the counter. Then he fled the workshop.
"You paid too much," Lorelai called after him.
"Put it on the tab. You know I'll be back," Kenny retorted, striding down the street faster than he'd come.
He could hear a rumble of amusement from the other shop and stall owners on the street. Kenny knew Lorelai heard it as well when he heard her exclaim in annoyance and the door to the shop slam shut.
***
"Is all you really need a bar of metal?" Kenny asked his master as he set the metal bar down on the worktable in his master's workshop.
Master Odom looked up with a smile. He'd been at his desk, scribbling frantically in one of his little leather-bound notebooks.
The notebooks were a special item. Kenny had no clue where he'd gotten them from. Whenever he declared one full, another would appear the next day.
There was an entire shelf of them at the back of the workshop. Kenny had to read at least three pages a day. It astounded him that no matter how many pages he read, it never looked like he'd gotten far at all. The notebooks still looked slim like they only held a dozen pages or so, and his place was always kept somehow.
Kenny assumed it was game mechanics. So far, he'd read one and a half of the over twenty notebooks. They were all about the way of the sword and swordmaking.
Just reading the little bit that he had had made Kenny a fanatical disciple. Master Odom was awesome!
"The bar is important," Master Odom replied with a smile. He closed the notebook, placing his pen to the side.
"In what way?" Kenny asked, following his master as he put the notebook away and strolled to the anvil that stood in the center of the workshop.
The workshop anvil was a curious thing. It was just a big block of metal with a flat surface. It didn't look anything like Kenny's idea of an anvil should. Still, when Master Odom had previously made swords, it soaked up the excess heat without any sign of deforming easily.
Currently, the bar Kenny had procured sat on it, nearly dwarfed by the anvil's large size. Kenny eyed it curiously. The bar wasn't small by any means.
"With this bar, we're going to try fashioning your first sword," Master Odom said with a smile.
Kenny's eyes widened. Until now, all his sword practice had been with a shinai, a bamboo sword he thought of more as a kendo thing than a swordplay thing. At least that was the closest thing he'd found to it when he'd researched it offline. It was more slender than the usual shinai with a strange heft that made his wrists ache a bit if he practiced too long.
"A sword for me?" Kenny asked, eyes darting from the bar to his master and back again. No matter how much he looked, it didn't seem to possible to turn the bar into a sword. "Are you sure?"
"Ah, now that's the apprentice I know and love," Master Odom laughed, tying on his apron. He gathered up his shoulder length hair and tied it into a small ponytail. "This is going to be a masterpiece of masterpieces! A fire sword that shoots clouds!"
"That's not a thing," Kenny immediately retorted.
"But it could be," Master Odom replied, still chuckling. He picked up the bar with one freshly gauntleted hand. Then he chucked it into the furnace. "This might be my best yet."
Kenny opened his mouth to comment only to be forestalled by his master holding up one hand.
"Don't you have this mysterious practice you have to do every day?" Master Odom asked, staring at the bar in the furnace.
Kenny peeped at it. It didn't seem like the bar was melting all that much. At the question, he started just a little, checking the time that floating in tiny numbers in the upper left-hand corner of his vision.
"I'm late!" Kenny yelped. "See you tomorrow, master!"
Master Odom waved him away as he darted towards the door. The wave altered towards the end to reach for the weird stylus his Master kept tucked behind one ear.
Kenny tossed all thoughts behind him as he rushed into his little room and logged out. His father would kill him if he was truly late for practice one more time.