Chapter Sixty-Four - In Passing

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Rosario couldn’t help but stare at Cricket as the bug girl frowned at a page. She’d occasionally lean forwards and scratch something into the notebook, her lips moving as she muttered things. 

Outside, massive trees were moving by, their sheer size belaying the speed at which they were moving. It was certainly faster than a sprint, or the top speed of a carriage, though she suspected cars could outpace this style of train. 

She was quite focused, which struck her as odd.

Lucky was reading from one of the books she had purchased and was quite absorbed by it. Hailey was making something small, tinkering with some wires and carefully folding them with a set of pliers, though she also often compared her work to a diagram in a textbook. Rosario suspected she was making some sort of enchantment array, though she wasn’t sure.

“What are you working on?” Rosario asked.

Cricket blinked as she looked up. “Training my [Jester] job. I’d have expected you to be proud of me, ‘grinding’ even now.”

“Oh,” Rosario said. “Forgive the interruption, then.”

The truth was that she was rather bored. The train was moving along, but the nice maids had left once their masters were settled in. She could faintly hear them a car away, tittering about something. Very maidly behaviour, but not something she could observe. 

This was maybe the first time since she’d come here that she missed her cellphone.

Cricket grumbled. “What rhymes with milk?”

“Pardon?” Rosario asked.

“Milk. You know. That stuff you mammals make? What rhymes with it?”

“Tilt, wilt,” Hailey said absently.

“Perhaps... silk, or quilt?” Rosario added. “Why are we rhyming things with milk?”

Cricket gestured vaguely with her pen. “Writing a limerick,” she said. “It’s harder than you’d think.”

“And this will help you level?” Rosario asked.

“Of course! A [Jester] isn’t unlike a bard. We’re just more... flexible. Heh! But good verse and prose and proper elocution is necessary to master the jesterly arts. You can’t make fun of someone if you stutter halfway through an insult. That would just be humiliating.”

“You are a strange bug.”

Cricket grinned, then she scratched a few more words down. “There once was a maiden whose milk,

From jugs covered in silk...”

Cricket tilted her head far to one side, then the other.

“What rhymes with ‘massive tiddies?’”

There was a gasp from the seats across from them, and when Rosario glanced that way, it was to see a middle-aged noble lady covering her mouth with a glove. She suspected that Cricket’s poetic musings had been overheard. 

Rosario shook her head, and then she pulled a book from her inventory and started to slowly read through it. It was about the textile industries of Alpta, and it was a genuinely fascinating read. 

The southern part of the country, basically most of the areas held within the Bowmans’ Woods, were poorly suited for the growth of any sort of cloth, though they were also the only producers of silk from--and she shuddered at the thought--giant forest spiders. Duskton had large hemp and flax fields, and some of the smaller cities to the east had small town that tended to sheep, producing a good amount of wool that was spun in households across the nation. 

The true worth was from the north, near and around Thorneton had a little bit of wool and hemp production.

Most of the clothing in the nation, however, was purchased from Lithos. Lithos had massive tracks of unfarmed land that were perfect for sheep, and its flocks produces wool by the ton. That was then processed locally and sold to Aeire.

That might have been one of the reasons for the long animosity between the nations. Though she imagined it ran a little deeper than merely one profiting off the other because of the price of wool, of all things.

Her reading was interrupted when lunch was served. Most of the guests in the cabins were served by an [Attendant] pushing along a trolley which sold sandwiches and other simple meals. There was also warm soup and tea, as well as biscuits. 

They ate, having an amicable chat while doing so, and one thing led to another and she soon found herself speaking with Hailey about the projects she wanted to undertake with the young gnome.

“I can make just about anything you can imagine!” Hailey said with great confidence. “Assuming, of course, that you have the budget to match.”

“Of course,” Rosario agreed. “I was actually thinking of starting with weapons for all of us.”

“Oh?” Hailey asked. “Go on!”

“Thank you... for myself... I don’t quite know. I did see someone using a whipsword recently, and that was interesting. Though I’m not sure if it’s for me.”

“Like The Whipsword of Gazebrook?” Hailey asked.

“Just like that, yes.” Rosario ignored the pointed look that Cricket was giving her over the edge of her notepad. “Lucky, is there anything you’d want from a sword?”

“Huh? Oh... I don’t know? Sorry. I don’t think I have enough experience to tell.” Lucky shrugged.

That was a fair and sensible point. “We’ll have you try a few different swords when we can. Maybe you’ll find something that feels particularly right. Though if you want sword mastery, you’ll want to train with multiple types of blades,” Rosario said. “Maybe some armour, then? We’ve been training you to dodge, but with your high constitution you might want to learn to use plate, or half-plate. That’s rather difficult to craft.”

“I’ll need some steel for that, and a forge, and... a few other things,” Hailey said.

“We can start with some jack chain, then, and maybe a lighter gambeson?” Those were usually rather cumbersome and thick, but she was certain she could find something more... flattering. Jack chain would be a nice, easy start for Lucky to get used to armour. Those were linked metal bars that ran along the outside of the forearm and bicep, with some amount of elbow protection. Useless against a thrust, but decent at blocking a swipe. “We’ll find it,” Rosario replied. “As for Cricket, her knives can be bought anywhere, they’re not so complex. But-- actually, Cricket, confirm this for me; are mallets traditionally considered clown weapons?”

“Huh? Yes? A little. Insofar as clowns have weapons. Clown isn’t truly a combat job. Jester is. Or at least, it leads down the path to combat classes and there are plenty of kill-y skills!”

“Good! Maybe a mallet, then? You have mid-ranged attacks, I think you should have a closer-range, more dangerous option. A high-damage attack would do you well. You’ll have to learn to use it. I don’t think there are any proper martial arts that focus on the mallet, but there aren’t very many that focus on throwing knives either.”

“I can probably make a mallet,” Hailey said.

“I’ll want something foldable,” Rosario said. “Compact, with a head that can change sizes. Also, it must be able to change its mass. Cricket lacks Strength. We can make that up by using her speed and sheer mass.”

“The spells to change mass are complicated,” Hailey said. “Not to say that I can’t make them work, or create the enchantments... but for a metal weapon, I’ll need a lot of rare materials. Orichalcum, or adamantium would work best, but even then, I’ll only be able to make small weight adjustments unless you have a lot of it.”

Rosario frowned, then pulled an ingot out of her inventory and set it on the table with a faint clunk.

Hailey stared. 

“Is that an ingot of orichalcum?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“That’s... worth a lot,” she said.

“It is,” Rosario said. Technically, more than gold. By a fair bit. Though it did contain gold. It was a mixture of copper, gold, zinc, and two other magical ores. There had been a whole quest chain about it. The metal had qualities similar to brass, making it... acceptable for weapon-smithing, though not as great as others. 

On the other hand, it was a fantastic magical conduit metal. One of the very best, in fact. 

Hailey gestured. “T-take it away, please?”

“Certainly, if you wish,” Rosario said.

“I was thinking about the mallet, and to make it, I’d probably need two small disks, very thin ones, of orichalcum, the sort of thing that could cost five or six gold in metal alone, but, ah, that’s a lot more than what I’d need.”

“So you’ll be able to make an impressive weapon, then,” Rosario said. “I can handle the actual enchanting. Unless you have more levels in that job line than I do?”

Hailey shook her head. “I only have a few, enough to get a couple of useful skills. Most of my enchanting knowledge comes from books.”

“That’s fine,” Rosario said. “We have a whole train-ride to figure out the shape of this.”

Finally, something she could do. All of this sitting around was going to drive her crazy.

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