Fantasy World Online II: Second Chance

Day 8-14: Ûl

After learning how to make arrows and bow, Ûl had to wait for the next Coming of Age Ceremony. In the mean while she planned on improving her technique and asked for aN official Job at Workshop. The craft master agreed a the condition that she worked half time as a clerc.

From then on she spent either the morning or the afternoon welcomming people from behing the counter and the rest of her day studying and copying the Designs that interested her.

Like this, she got designs of short, standard, hunting and long bows. They were mostly made of wood but some had metalic reemforcements and one even had blades on its extremities.
Then their was the areows: flat, four sided, weighted, round, harpoon like, needle like... All had different maniffacturing methods and utilities that she made sure to remember.

After three days of holding the counter the craftmaster started giving her tastks: clean here and there, carve this and that, repair or study those...
As she did she felt that carving became easier, her hands became used to holding the carving, shaving and polishing tools.
The more she did the more she understood, the more she jnderstood carving the better she planned and prepared and the more she planned the better her carving.

On the fourf day a boy with dark messy hair wearing brass armbands and two small axes on his back came to the shop. He was here by recommendation of the smith and gave Ûl a paper scroll on witch the designs for a sword were insceibed.

If it were from before her stay at the shop she would have told the boy that the designed item was supposed to be made from metal and therefore the plans were meant for a smith not a carver, but with her new experience of studying designs she noticed that all the instructions needed to produce the sword by carving it out of wood was present.

"Of course! I will start right away, comme back in three hours please."
"Ah, how much will it be? Please make them as sturdy and durable as possible!"

The client was a player so he would have limited money. She thought about it. If he wanted durrability then...

"I will need that wood, process it that way and carve this way then assenble hee and use that..."

Ul finally made a desition considering the price and added a bit for profit.

"Hum, consideeing the materials and the work... 50 copper the training sword"
"50 coppers!?"
"Okay okay, 45. How many do you want?

Thinking he had noticed rthe inflation she lowered the price a bit.

"... I will need twenty of them please. but make two to begin with."
"Okay... Pick them in five hours. Pay up front though."
"Here"

When the boy had commended so much training sword she had been worried that hebwould change his mind and had added the last part on a whil yet he handed her the ten silver coins with a large smile and left the shop practically hopping with glee.

Ûl immediatly went to the master crafter with the command.

"Well, since this is your first request why don't you make them yourself?"
"I can ?"
"You have the level so why not?"

And with this she moved to the crafting table with Hard wood, resin, her tools and the designs.

She spent the next hour carving then shaving a large branch verticaly. She made a straight blade with shaved edges conected to the handle. On the handle She added irregular notchs that were latter used to secure the position of leather strips.

Then came the guard. She cut an oval wooden disk with a whole the shape of the blade in the middle and slipped the blade through the guard, applied resin to make it hold and straped it with some extra leather.

Proud of her work she showed it to her master.

"Its good. But you better polish it a bot or your custumer will get shards."

And so she did. After that she produced a second sword in the same fashion. The boy came back as she was finishing the polish of the second sword.

As she gave him the swords Ûl was surprised at how delighted the player was.

"Is my training sword so good? Or is it this difficult to get a sword?"

After the boy left she went for a stroll and visited all the smiths she knew of. She asked them the price of second hand and stàdard weapons.

"Indeed, the wooden swords are much cheaper."

She went to the smith workshop where she had learned how to forge areow heads and asked for permission to look at the designs.

As she did she immagined the swords not being forged but carved and made design of her own.
It took her the rest of the day. When she went back to the wood work shop the owner gave her an earfull and she eeligently went to work on therest of the swords the boy had commanded.

For the next three days that is all she did: manage te counter and carve swords while there was no customers.

She started with the eighteen short swords for te boy, using te same wood and technique. When she was done it only took her an hour for each sword.

Then she started doing longer swords followed by curved swords. Since the shape of the blade was te only major change it didn't take long for her to adjust so she soon swotched to making axes and knifes out of wood.

At some point rumors had spread and she started selling her training weapons like hot patatoes on a cold snowy winter night.
Since she used the shops worshop and material she only received 30% of the profits but still, it was plenty.

When Sunday, her rest day at the shop, came she took her bow and arrows and went to hunt. All day long she preyed on snakes, squirels, rabits and birds that were hiding in the shade and trees while dealing with the occasional wolfs, deers and boars.
She took care while scalping them and sold their meat.
She brought the scalps to a tanner and paid to have them process into fur and leather.
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