Another day had passed in Inchor, and the beginning of the festival was now only one day away. Grouped up outside the inn they had chosen to stay at, the Monster Party was discussing their plans for their last free day before their quest began.
"I want to go somewhere with Grace!" Garret loudly proclaimed, his hand held out to Grace who was simply giggling to herself.
"No way!"
"Urgh, my heart!"
Garret clutched at his chest upon her response, his face wincing in pain. This was his most common reaction to her many rejections.
"Stop being so silly!"
"Yes ma'am!"
The group laughed as they watched the common antics of Garret when it comes to Grace.
"Honestly though," Lydia said, cutting into the comedy show. "We all will be guarding on the night of each day, so what do we need to prepare?"
"I don't know, maybe some lights?" Chris answered.
"Sorry, I was asking the smart people, Chris," Lydia curtly said.
"What!? I'm a smart person!"
Everyone laughed at that.
"Oh really, what about the time you walked into a trap right after I had told you there was a trap there?" Lydia said.
"Urk!"
"Ooh! Or the time when you believed that scamming trader about his 'magical' leather boots that let you walk on water? You were soaked for the rest of the day!" David jumped in.
"How was I supposed to know!?"
"Don't forget about the time when you woke us all up for a fight because you thought you heard a monster, and it was just a cat!" Garret said.
"Okay, that one was my fault..."
The whole group started laughing as Chris slumped his shoulders, completely defeated by his party.
"Now, what should we do to prepare?" Lydia said, bringing the discussion back on topic.
"I don't think there is anything for us to prepare," Grace said. "Afterall, the walls will be well lit, we paid the inn to give us rooms during the days, and the guards will provide food in the barracks during our watches. Other than some equipment maintenance, we should be fine."
"Equipment maintenance, huh. It has been a while since we had a chance to do that," Henry said, looking at his sword.
The rest of the group also looked at their weapons. Some needed some sharpening, some needed cleaning, and some just needed a little bit of polish to look nice. Their armor as well also needed some tuning, being scuffed, scratched, and dented in some places from their previous encounters.
"How about we split up then, fix up our weapons and armor?" Garret said. "I can take Grace to someone here in the city that can help her get her bow in top shape as well as finding someone to sharpen my axe real good. Neither of us need armor repairs as well, so it should go faster with just us."
Garret's eyes darted between Grace and the group, his dim plan to get some alone time with Grace being put out amongst the group.
"I think it's a good idea," Grace suddenly answered after a short moment of thinking.
"Really!? I mean, uh, of course it is!"
Garret's face was bright red, his body a bundle of nerves.
"Really! We can also bring Henry. He doesn't have any problems with his armor either since he doesnt wear any beneath his cloak, so the three of us can get our tuning done together while the other three group up with each other."
"Oh... Yeah, right. I knew that..."
Garret seemed to deflate in an instant, realizing his scheme for a date with Grace had been foiled by Grace herself. Grace only giggled as she watched.
"After we're done, we can get lunch together, just the two of us," Grace said, a small smile on her lips.
"Ah..? Ah! Yes, of course!" Garret stuttered, surprised to suddenly be provided a new opportunity for a date with her.
The rest of the group laughed as they watched.
"It sounds like a good plan to me. In that case, we will split into two groups of three and get our equipment maintained. The first group will be Garret, Grace, and Henry. The second group will be myself, David, and Christopher. Do we all understand?" Lydia asked, suddenly seizing control.
Everyone nodded, though Chris seemed deflated by Lydia suddenly taking command of the group.
"Lydia, I'm supposed to hy the leader," he quietly mumbled to her.
"I hear no meaningful objections. Let's split up then."
"Lydia!" Chris whined.
The group laughed amongst themselves once more, splitting up to take care of their preparations.
* * * * *
"We have our first shift for the guard quest starting tomorrow. Let's make sure we have everything in proper working order," I say to my two companions.
The three of us are sitting in the barracks, a couple of others guards dispersed in the room around us.
"What do you mean? Shouldn't everything be fine?" Blake asked, confused.
"For Lillia maybe, considering she didn't get close to those Goblins. For us however, we need to look over our equipment, specifically our swords."
"Yeah, but why?"
Lillia also seemed rather confused as she watched, sitting on one of the beds across from us.
"Well, firstly, we used our swords to kill those Goblins," I said, pulling mine from its sheath. "We already took the time to clean both it and its sheath to prevent bad smells, but we need to more closely examine the sword itself."
I bring the sword up to my eyes, following the edge as I softly run my fingers down the flat of the blade, feeling along the edge.
"What I'm doing right now is checking if the blade itself was blunted at all during our fight. Minor blurting may not serve to be an immediate problem, but I find it best to remove any bluntness from a sword after each fight to keep it nice and sharp."
Blake nods, watching closely.
"Right here, near the tip of the sword, there is a small bit of bluntness from when I slashed some of the Goblins. It should be something that is easy to remove."
"Remove? As in removing it yourself? Why don't we just take it to a blacksmith?" Blake asked, slightly annoyed at the idea of having to perform his own maintenance.
"There are a few reasons. The first is that it costs money to do so."
Lillia's face sours slightly at the idea, and Blake nods with understanding.
"The second is that is a decent skill to have, and the third is that, in an emergency where you are separated from civilization and you need to make equipment repairs, knowing how to do so could save your life."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Blake said with a sigh, always slightly annoyed to admit when I was right.
"Good. Now that we're all on the same page, let me show you this," I say, pulling a whetstone from my pack.
The stone is brick-shaped, and it isn't particularly large, but it does have a bit of weight to it.
"Whats that?" Blake asks, pointing at my stone.
"This is a whetstone, you can use it to sharpen your blades," I say, setting it down on a flat surface.
"Uhh, how are you supposed to use that to sharpen a blade?" Blake asked again, confused once more.
"Like this."
Gently, just beneath the tip of the sword where the bluntness is, I slide the blade against the whetstone at an angle, slowly and with fine control, all the way up to the tip. A fine metallic-shing can be heard with the movement, as I repeat it over and over.
"Are you seeing how I'm doing it?" I ask, pausing to look at Blake.
He nods.
"Good. I don't really need to do more than a couple more slides," I say, finishing up the sharpening process. "How would you like to try?"
"Me?"
"Yeah you. How else will you learn to do it yourself?"
Blake awkwardly pulls his sword from his sheath before bringing it close to his eyes, examining the edge.
"The tip of the blade itself looks pretty blunted," he says.
"Probably because you stabbed through two of the Goblins. Is that all?" I ask, finishing my work.
"I think so," he answered.
"Good, give it a try then," I say, handing him the whetstone.
Copying my every step, he sets the stone on a flat surface before placing the blade at an angle against the whetstone, just beneath where the bluntness starts. He then starts to slowly run the blade along the stone, making a fine metallic-shing sound.
"Good, good, you're doing great. You want to make sure to repeat the process on both edges of the blade as well as both sides, so four times total. Normally you wouldn't have to if you just slashed enemies with one of the edges, but stabbing affects both edges," I explain.
Blake slowly nods as he continues.
"That looks good, flip it and do the other side."
"Mmm."
There shouldn't be anything else we need to worry about preparing for today. That just leaves the quest tomorrow then.