Monster Hunter: Stars of Hope

Chapter Fourteen: Upgrades

The Autumn Harvest Fest had finally drawn to a close, which meant three things; Nia could stop having to focus so much on her contract, non-urgent quests were picking back up, and business in Granport had returned to normal. A year ago, she wouldn't have thought that she'd look forward to the end of a holiday celebration and the subsequent return to work as much as she had been. Then again, she was still working at the Granport docks in those days, which was a remarkably dull job compared to being a hunter. Though, she couldn't help but wonder what these sorts of seasonal celebrations were like in the gathering hub, having often heard that they were a cut above what one could enjoy out in the streets. Of course, it would have to be something she'd hopefully get to experience another day.

As for this day, Nia had actually gotten to the guildhall early, though she wasn't planning on trying to wake up Perren for some sunrise hunting. Rather, she was here for a completely different reason: visiting the smithy before today's quests. It would be the first time she had actually visited the Granport guildhall's forge, even though her friends had already made several visits of their own to refine their gear. In fact, she had actually forgotten the exact directions given to her for how to reach the smithy, and was more or less too embarrassed by this to ask anyone. A hunter not knowing where to get new gear was like a chef not knowing where to acquire ingredients; It just wasn't a good look. Now, though, her armor was starting to fall behind in toughness, and her blade was starting to seem a bit dull; She couldn't afford to hold off any longer. So, knowing that the smithy would most likely be open already, she made sure to get to the guildhall before the majority of the city's other hunters were out and about, and do the only thing she could think of to track it down on her own: wander aimlessly for nearly an hour. Someone needed to put up some signs in this place.

Fortunately, Nia eventually found the smithy: a sprawling workshop packed to the brim with forges, anvils, workbenches, conveyor belts, and myriad articles of raw materials, half-completed pieces, and finished models of hunter equipment and guild tools. There was also an intense heat to this place, generated by those working within already beginning orders for the day, which was a large part of what helped her finally find the smithy. Fortunately, it did not take nearly as long for her to find who she needed to talk to put any of her orders in: an aged wyverian man named Fenan. She only knew any features to identify him by due to seeing him talk with Haldys not too long ago; light-skin, scraggly grey hair, bushy mutton chops that connected in a similarly bushy mustache, and the standard attire of a blacksmith's apron and forging mask sat over his brow. Though, two things helped her single him out more easily than any of that. The first was a rather comfortable-looking shawl of blue and white fur over his shoulders and back, which Nia would have guessed came from a Gammoth; one of the very few monsters she knew of that she specifically wanted to see for herself one day. More obvious than that, though, was his height. Most wyverians lost much of their stature as they grew old, far more so than most humans did, which often left them at a similar height to the average felyne. However, with that kind of age also came literal centuries of experience; Most human craftsmen struggled to match the proficiency of these elder wyverians, though it was fortunate that the latter were known in many guildhalls and villages to have a knack for mentoring the former.

Nia wasn't sure if this was one such guildhall.

Fenan had a bit of a reputation for being reluctant to really 'play nice' with others at the best of times and being downright grumpy at the worst, which had actually contributed to some of the delay that Nia had put into looking for him. Some people even claimed that he was a bit unhinged and eccentric on occasion. Much of this was clear to see, given that in the moments he wasn't barking abrupt orders to his assistants around the workshop, he was working on his own projects and seemingly not paying them any heed. Interestingly, said assistants didn't seem to care all that much, either being used to it at this point or knowing something about their master that wasn't obvious. Regardless, it was clear that some of what she had heard was very much true about Fenan. At this point, though, Nia was just hoping that the talk of him being a quite talented blacksmith was just as accurate as the rest of what people talked about.