Making a basic set [Crafting]

[duck]

Finally getting "home" after what could be considered an "adventure" (not exactly much of one but, hey, at least it wasn't another damned Scouts meeting), he pulled out the things that he had purchased back at the store. Today, he was finally going to get rid of this unpleasant armor. He had disliked the look of it ever since he had come into this world, and now he was going to be able to make something that he was actually interested in. The goods were all here, and now all that he had to do was be ready for the stuff.

It should be said at this point that his "home" was not, in fact, a home; it was more of a tent than anything else. Having been unable to find a guild that wanted him enough to ask for his membership, he had dedicated himself to working hard at what he liked, rather than going around buying buildings. So, for the last few days, he had been camping in the tube system. It might not be as grand as the Kings Cross, but it was out of the way of most players and he was able to do whatever he wanted in this place. It even had convenient plumbing and toilets, which was honestly a huge plus to any house.

That being said, this place had to be one of the least pleasant places that he had ever camped in. He understood how those bums who lived here back in the human world must feel. Because he only had the cold ground to sleep on, he found almost impossible to sleep due to being cold and uncomfortable with the night winds blowing in on him, the floor was constantly cold to sit on and there was little supply of readily available food. Due to being in the middle of town, he'd have to go for a ten minute walk to even find a nearby enemy that he could kill for its meat to do any of the basic recipes. He wasn't even a cook so he couldn't make himself anything that didn't taste absolutely putrid. On the plus side, at least there was nobody here to judge him for his inability to find somewhere more long-lasting for him to live, and so it was manageable.

Moving over to one of the stools that he had found in the wreckage, he sat down in it and pulled over a piece of broken floor tiling to act as a shield to his legs. It was heavy, but with the strength of his body he was able to ignore that fact. Besides. this way there was absolutely no way that he might end up stabbing himself in the leg... like the first time he'd tried this job after coming to this world. He was pretty sure that he would have had a scar if this body was able to scar, so whilst this was heavy it was the best way to avoid a similar incident.

WC: 503

[duck]

There were many jobs that people could have in a basic economy like this. There were people who sold ingredients, like the one that he had bought the ingredients for this work for, there were blacksmiths, and then there was his own personal craft - the tailors. Although, he didn't really like the name. It made him feel like some sort of ponce with a waxed mustache and an overt desire to get punched in the face.

The basic concept around this craft was pretty simple, especially for someone like him who had been doing things like this all his life. You killed animals to get the leather that you were going to use (or, in his case, buy the ingredients from some sort of store), and then you sewed it together with silk produced by some of the local merchants, and had some sort of underlying fabric to make sure that it all knitted together properly.

Of course, in reality, you would also have to find some way to measure the person that you were making it for, taking their height, their waist, their gut, and then when you had the sizes you'd have to make a new one every single time they got a bit taller or gained a little bit of weight. Thankfully, whether or not it fitted was kind of unimportant in this game. He was pretty sure that if he and a dwarf used the same amount of ingredients they'd get the same result, and it'd fit both of them equally. That was the problem when you did it like this - it all came down to maths. Ingredients + other ingredients = finished product. The sewing of it together was essentially just the plus sign.

In fact, he was often surprised just how quickly he was able to do stuff like this. He guessed this was some sort of remnant from the days when it would take a few seconds for the progress bar to be finished and to have something for your avatar to wear. Now it took more like five minutes, but that was still a lot faster than it would take in reality. Or, maybe it was actually longer than he thought it was - he didn't exactly have a clock on hand. Though, now that he thought about it, there was probably some sort of app for that.

The sewing itself was a bit of a pain though. As you could probably guess from the fact that he was willing to crush his legs under a paving tile, he wasn't exactly the most accurate person alive. Because of his somewhat rushed actions, he often ended up thrusting his needle too far through the fabric and drawing blood either from his legs or his hands themselves. Thankfully, it took off like 1% of his total HP every time he did that so unless he did it 100 times in quick succession, he very much doubted anything would happen. Still, losing HP was painful, so he was going to go out of his way to avoid it if it was at all possible.

WC: 516

[duck]

Well, whilst it might have not seemed like very long when he was constructing it to be sold to other people, now that he was making his own it felt somewhat longer. He knew, in some part of him deep down, that it was actually taking the same amount of time, and with the amount of experience he had in this, he was sure that he wasn't going to make any mistakes, but it just felt longer. It was at moment slike this that he remembered that line that he had been told so often when he was a child - Time flies when you're having fun. If that was the case, then someone had clearly frozen the clock in this tunnel, because it was going ridiculously slowly.

"thread by thread, stitching it together" he sang quietly, tunelessly, as if trying to combat some of his anxiety by letting out a little tune. Hell, he didn't even know why he was nervous, it was going to come out well just like it had been designed to. This was a game, and he was sticking by the rules so nothing was going to go wrong. "Making shit, don't have to worry if it will fit or making sure the length will go nicely, it'll sit right on the hip, just gotta make sure the fabric's correctly facing and avoid stabbing in the hand from off-time pacing. I'm making low-tier craaaap."

Where the tune had come from, he wasn't entirely sure to be brutally honest, but it was somewhat hauntingly recognizable. it was annoying that he couldn't remember where he had heard it before, because now that he was stuck inside the game world, there was no YouTube or Google, and that meant that he was going to be haunted by the fact that he didn't remember the name of it until he woke up in the night in a few days with a sudden revelation, which by then will be utterly pointless and annoying. He sighed, and as he finished slipping the final bit of thread through the coat, he dusted it down and looked at it with an expression of pride.

What had merely been a pile of scraps around five minutes earlier was now something that he was going to be interested in wearing. The fabric had been long enough to reach down to around the back of his legs, whilst the main part of it was able to hold its own against a few blows. Much better than the basic stuff that he was wearing right now, although now that he looked at it after finishing, he had to imagine that going into a dungeon would cause things that were much more appropriate for someone of his class to wear. Still, slipping it over his basic jerkin, he smiled - this was the first thing that he had made for himself to wear, and as he heard the beeping of his character bar, he noticed that he had managed to level up.

WC: 501