“Mngh…” Feeling the warm rays of the sun wash over his body, Valyr gradually roused from his slumber as he gradually opened his eyes. Giving his consciousness time to become fully awake, he slowly sat upright before turning around to look out of the window, only to notice that the sun was already quite high up in the sky.
Though this gave Valyr quite a bit of shock, it was not to the point that it would warrant him getting out of the bed as soon as possible. With the fact that he had fought in a life and death duel and joined an operation that solved a citywide problem before it got worse yesterday, Valyr thought that he should take it somewhat easy for a while.
Feeling the body aches he was expecting to suffer through last night finally take hold of his body, a bitter smile appeared on his face as he got out of the bed before pushing his body to do some light stretching, alleviating a bit of the soreness and pain he felt. After that, he made his way to the bathroom as he took a brief glance at the storefront, only to see Wells arranging the equipment they would put up on sale for today.
Letting out a soft chuckle, Valyr went ahead and took a long and warm shower, letting the warm water wash away the soreness that rampaged throughout his body as he eventually let out a long sigh of relief. Once he was finished drying himself up, he then changed into a set of modest-looking clothes before heading to where Wells was.
“Oh, you’re finally awake.” At the very moment Wells noticed Valyr enter the smithy, he briefly flashed a smile at the man before nodding, continuing to do what he was doing soon after. “It’s quite rare to see you wake up so late in the morning.”
“I’ve been through a lot yesterday, so I was just giving my body the proper rest it needed.” Valyr chuckled in response. “In any case, I have no plans to open the smithy today.”
“You should have told me earlier.” Hearing his friend’s words, Wells let out a bitter chuckle, to which Valyr let out a chuckle as well. “Are you still planning to meet the blacksmith today, though?”
“How could I not?” Valyr nodded. “Though we may be leaving for the kingdom tomorrow morning, someone should take up the mantle of the Crimson Forge in my stead. After all, I’m pretty sure that the forging emporium’s reputation within the city has tanked after the duel.”
“Speaking of which, did anything interesting happen while I was asleep?” At those words, Wells gave Valyr a knowing smile before nodding in response.
“A lot of things,” said Wells to him. “For one, the city was in chaos after everyone found out that the mayor had been involved in the whole Clossbay Killer incident, with many people heading to the mayor’s office to hopefully beat the man up.”
“Were they successful?” Though Valyr already knew the answer to the question, he still decided to ask Wells about it, eliciting a shake of the head from the latter.
“Not at all,” Wells replied. “In fact, when they slammed the door to the mayor’s office open, the mayor was nowhere to be found. Instead, people with authority from the kingdom were actually inside the mayor’s office, informing all of the citizens that decided to barge in that they were under the kingdom’s jurisdiction for now until they found another person that was suitable for the position.”
“Aside from that, the people from the kingdom told those citizens that they were informed by a few people from the city in secret regarding the whole ordeal, allowing them to take care of matters before anything worse happened,” he continued, a knowing smile adorning his face once more as he looked at Valyr.
“Because of that, a ton of people in the city are on the lookout for the so-called saviors of Clossbay City. Then again, we don’t really have anything to do with that, no?” As Wells concluded his explanation, Valyr knew for a fact that his friend already had an idea on what was going on, prompting him to inwardly snicker as he remained a neutral expression on the outside, nodding before posing another question to Wells.
“How about the forging emporium? Is there any news about them?” Not getting the reaction he wanted out of Valyr, Wells became briefly dejected as his expression returned to normal not long after. Recalling the gossip he had heard from people who knew Valyr and him from the time he went outside earlier, he eventually gave Valyr a response.𝗈𝑽𝓵xt.𝒸𝐎𝔪
“As you’ve mentioned earlier, the reputation of the forging emporium greatly soured after the life and death duel, only for it to worsen even further after they were found out to be colluding with a few people that were involved in the Clossbay Killer incident.” Hearing these words from Wells, Valyr nodded in silence as he motioned for the man in front of him to continue.
Nodding back, Wells continued with his explanation. “According to what I’ve heard, because of that, the monopoly the forging emporium had over the forging industry was finally broken, with many people flocking towards fledgling independent, as well as medium-sized smithies. Naturally, our Crimson Forge is also included in this list.”
“However, unlike the other smithies, the reputation of the Crimson Forge went above and beyond after the entire ordeal, with your victory in the life and death duel only bolstering that reputation even further.” Saying these words, Wells looked at Valyr with a light grin. “In fact, a great number of people had stopped me while I was outside earlier to ask me if we were going to open the smithy today.”
In response to Wells’ words, Valyr could only bitterly smile, inwardly apologizing to those that have become regulars of the establishment, especially after taking into consideration that it had only been a bit over two weeks since the Crimson Forge was first opened.
Though he felt a bit of pain from this fact, he eventually got over it, reminding himself of the goals he had for himself to achieve in the future. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to put the newfound reputation of the Crimson Forge to waste, hoping that the blacksmith Wells found to take his place would be able to maintain a relatively similar level of quality in his works.
With his stomach slightly rumbling from hunger, Valyr told Wells to come along with him as they made their way outside, only to be stopped by a few regulars that had asked Valyr if the Crimson Forge was going to open today. In response, Valyr gave them an apologetic smile as he told them that the smithy wouldn’t be open.
Though dejected, the regulars understood the reasoning behind Valyr’s decision, recalling the life and death duel he had participated in yesterday. With that in mind, their dejection turned into understanding as they told Valyr to get a lot of rest, prompting the latter to reply back that they should get some rest as well, only to bid farewell to them after he told them that the Crimson Forge would be open tomorrow.
With the regulars that came across the duo being instilled with newfound hope and excitement towards the following day, the two continued on their merry way to a nearby restaurant, swiftly ordering the meals they wanted to eat as Wells looked at Valyr with a slightly curious expression. “Are you sure you should have told them that?”
“It’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.” In response, Valyr gave Wells a composed smile as a question surfaced in his mind not long after. “Speaking of which, let’s meet the blacksmith you found after this, then head to the place I mentioned where we could gain a lot of XP.”
“Alright.” With Wells nodding in response, the two of them passed the time by talking about what things they wanted to do after they arrived at the kingdom, their meals arriving in front of them just as their conversation seemed to have reached a climax.
Surprisingly, rather than stop their conversation there and continue it after they were finished eating, they instead continued their conversation amidst their meals, prompting grins to appear on both of their faces as they imagined themselves doing the things they wanted to do in the kingdom.
After paying for their respective meals, the two of them left the restaurant before stopping by at a slightly popular meet-up spot, with Valyr finally meeting the blacksmith Wells had found yesterday face-to-face. Though he was slightly bewildered by the fact that he was finally able to meet the blacksmith that would take his place, wondering how Wells had contacted him ahead of time, it did not take long for a few plausible ideas to pop up in his mind, causing a smile to appear on Wells’ face as Valyr looked at him.
Fortunately, the conversation Valyr and the blacksmith, Magis, held was quite positive, with both sides learning from each other regarding the art of forging. Naturally, the two of them also discussed what they were going to do with the Crimson Forge, with the two of them coming to an agreement as Magis eventually separated from Valyr and Wells.
Though Wells was curious as to what the two had talked about, considering that Magis had erected a barrier surrounding both him and Valyr during the conversation, he decided to place the question at the back of his head for now as he and Valyr eventually arrived at the place where the latter told he could earn a lot of XP.
The Experience Pit.