Chapter 43: UpgradesWe go to central Curatar, starting with the weapon shop. I’ve heard that this is the best in the empire since the stores in the capital cater to the idle rich. Well, maybe that’s just what it looks like to me rather than anything anyone’s said. Dressed in my new Sacred Robe, partially covered by a cloak, I’m curious which category the merchant will think of me.

  “Welcome, My Lord, it’s such an honor to serve you.”

  “My dear proprietor, I am but a humble freeman, dedicated to fighting the byrinths. I am looking for suitably powerful weapons for myself and my party members.”

  “Well, you have come to the right pce, Sir.”

  This seems to have worked pretty well since he led me to the back to show off the good stuff. To his credit, he didn’t try to pawn shiny garbage on me, not that anything fit that description here. The absolute best item for me was a Damascus-steel rod with a generous three open skill slots. As far as I can tell, Damascus seems to be the highest grade material commonly avaible in stores. Well, maybe there’s yet another level of VIP area that I haven’t seen.

  Around a meter in length, this rod is heavier than the staff and probably even Durandal. A few quick test swings and I can already feel that this will be a good weapon for me. At just 6k, it isn’t terribly expensive either. It’s quite possible that this backroom is more for unpopur items that are too expensive to throw away. So, maybe not so VIP after all. Meh, works for me.

  I asked the merchant, “I’d like to have a scabbard or holder for this rod. It should be comfortable and reasonably quick to draw.”

  “Certainly, Sir. We have several models right over here.”

  Oh, I guess these are pretty normal here. I ended up getting a nice leather holster that held the weapon diagonally across my back. Theo picked out a Damascus-steel short sword called an arming sword, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Of course, Theo picked this because I told everyone that anything but the best would be a waste of money.

  “Nice pick, Theo. How about the one next to it instead? Does that one feel good?”

  “Yes, Boss. It’s exactly the same.”

  “Good, let’s go with the second. Anything else?”

  Sherry’s steel spear (with an open skill slot) is pretty good for the moment and Alina is stubbornly sticking with her sword from the infamous Pirate. I paid the honest merchant without using Haggle and we went to the armor shop.

  The guy at this armor shop was understandably even more impressed by my robe. There was little chance to expin that I was actually a commoner after he called for tea to be served and urged me to sit down. It felt like I’d just walked into a nerd convention wearing an authentic uniform. Unsurprisingly, he rarely had armor of this quality in his store.

  According to the merchant, this robe is made of mythril. Considering the flexibility, it’s probably just mythril threads woven into cloth rather than being pure metal — or it’s just a name.

  Theo and Alina found small, Damascus-steel shields, both of which with an open slot. No body armor upgrade appropriate for Theo and none of the gloves, shoes or hats seemed interesting. I paid and headed home before getting the urge to buy anything else.

  Marcus took all the new equipment for inspection and possible maintenance, except for my robe, which he dared not even touch. Not sure if he recognized its value or just noted the attention it got at the armor shop. Regardless, I switched to normal clothes and went to the capital alone.

  A bit too early to fetch Sherry so I took the time to look for interesting ingredients for cooking. I guess I should have brought someone who likes to cook. To not leave empty-handed, I bought a kilo or so of raw pistachios. Pretty sure I’ll manage to figure out how to roast them at home, though I could try them raw first. How will it look to litter a byrinth with empty shells? Well, they’ll probably get absorbed like any other organic, mundane material.

  I managed to remember that I came here for Sherry and got to the library a bit before she walked out. The smell of alcohol was much stronger than st time. Maybe this is part of the appeal of this pce.

  “Hello, Sherry. Um, it seems like you drank quite a bit today.”

  “Huh? No, I just spilled a little water on myself.” [1]

  “Well, don’t drink too much water there. Anyway, did you find anything useful?”

  “Yes, M- David, I gathered most of the monster data in the morning and really got absorbed in geography the rest of the day.”

  Sherry enthusiastically rattled off the highlights as we walked to a private spot to warp home and continued talking even after walking through the living room, probably not even noticing the rest of the party. This must be what I look like except that I mainly talk to myself. Touching her shoulder helped snap her out of it though I actually liked the topic and didn’t really want to interrupt.

  We showed Sherry the new gear and she liked her new shield. I told her that several pieces had open skill slots so we would ask for her help to make them even better.

  “David, this robe is wonderful.”

  “They told me that it’s particurly good for magic users like Mages.”

  “Yes, mythril helps protect against magic attacks and enhances magical power.”

  Theo called us in to dinner: pork ribs with sauerkraut. We made it from purchased cabbage since ours are far from ready to harvest. Of course, I’m not worried about the cost of cabbage. It’s just fun to have our own produce, especially when I don’t have to do it all myself.

  Sherry continues, “It’s hard to believe that those elves, um, nobles would give away such a precious item.”

  “Oh, is it really that special?”

  “Yes and expensive too, since wealthy people wear it for the beauty.”

  “OK, I’ll cover it with a cloak in town.”

  “So, David, what’s the catch?”

  “They want us to help with the byrinths until Rutina’s old enough to inherit the title.”

  “Oh, do you have a title now?”

  “No way! I only promised that we would keep doing what we were already doing.”

  “Ha ha, I like that.”

  ────────────────────────

  “Sherry, after dinner, rather than going out again, I’d like if you could start teaching me Brahim.”

  In a suspiciously soft voice, Alina asks, “David, what are you talking about?”

  “Oh, right, I forgot to tell everyone that I don’t actually know Brahim. No, wait, that sounds weird. I mean, I can’t read Brahim. Well, I can’t read it because I don’t know it. OK, what I have is a skill to transte to and from spoken Brahim. To me, all of this sounds like my native nguage, which it isn’t.”

  Sherry steps in, “It seems to be true. We did a little test too. David, I did some research on Brahim in the library. I think we can do this.”

  It probably won’t help, but I swapped my Priest to my Tutor job and went to fetch my notes. Everyone sat around to watch. I showed Sherry the transliteration table I had created. Of course, she couldn’t read my letters… for like, a few minutes. OK, that wasn’t my Tutor skill. Sherry’s just incredible.

  “So, David, where are the other symbols of your nguage?”

  I wrote out the punctuation I could think of but that apparently wasn’t what she wanted.

  “I mean like the symbols to show who owns what and where it belongs.”

  “Like grammar? We use different words for that and write everything in a certain order.”

  “Hmm, that seems, um, interesting. Brahim has symbols for that so less writing is needed. Paper is expensive, after all.”

  On the cheap, reusable wax tablets, Sherry wrote out several short sentences and sounded out the parts slowly and separately enough that my auto-transtion didn’t kick in. That’s the trick we figured out — only transtable words got transted. It turns out that some of the letters I couldn’t figure out were markers for the endings of certain words, which could stand for several different things. Total chaos.

  “Sherry, show me that old name for Brahim again and say it slowly. It was familiar somehow.”

  “OK, it’s ?bra chi um im per ii?, which literally means ‘the arm of the empire’.”

  “Hmm, brachial, so ? arm ? is like ‘arm’ and ? empire ? must mean ‘empire’.”

  “David, to me, it sounded like you repeated ‘arm’ and ‘empire’.”

  “Oh, cool, Brahim is Latin or at least something like it.” [2]

  “Is that a nguage you know?”

  “No, not really. Well, some words, but not enough to just read it.”

  “Maybe this can help you figure out where you’re from.”

  “Thanks, but that’s different. Anyway, I’m going to need to learn all these extra symbols. This is like shorthand — no wonder I had so much trouble.”

  “I’ll write out a partial list.”

  While she’s doing that, I notice that everyone else is absolutely transfixed by this event — so this is what happens without TV. More importantly, I see that Sherry now has the Tutor job.

  “Sherry, would you mind if I temporarily switched your job to Tutor? It’s avaible now.”

  “Huh? What’s that? I’ve never heard of that job.”

  “You get it from teaching, at least from teaching a nguage, or maybe just Brahim. Anyway, I’m guessing someone at An’s shop was a Tutor.” [3]

  “Oh? Oh! That makes sense. Brahim seemed really hard when I tried to learn it at home and then it was so easy when she expined it.”

  I switched her to Tutor and we continued for a couple hours until I started to sound like an English public school kid from the movies: ‘agrico, agricoe’. [4]

  “Thanks, Sherry, that’s probably enough for today. I’ll switch you back to normal.”

  “That’s a really odd thing to say, David.”

  ────────────────────────

  I prepared baths as a reward to Sherry, though it’s just as much for me.

  “Sherry, I hope you don’t mind that I’m asking you to do all these weird things.”

  “It’s not what I expected — it’s much better.”

  Alina says quietly, “Yeah, I wish I could do stuff like that.”

  “Me too, but I’m also gd that we know how to do different things so we can help each other be better together.”

  Alina responds, “David, you can say good things sometimes.”

  After bathing, I ask Sherry, “Are you too tired to do a crystal fusion tonight?”

  “I’m fine. Anyway, teaching was fun. What do you need?”

  “My Sacred Robe with…”

  “Um, maybe something a little easier. Even if you’re confident, I’d be too nervous.”

  “OK, no problem. It can wait till you feel comfortable. How about attaching an Ox skill crystal to Alina’s dragon-leather boots?”

  “Sure, I can do that.”

  “Woohoo! Thanks, Sherry! Oh, and David too, but mainly Sherry.”

  Alina ran off to get her boots.

  “Sherry, will a Kobold crystal help?”

  “It’s Swift versus Speed, but I don’t know exactly how much of a difference that will be. I’ve heard that it depends on the normal speed of the wearer, so they wouldn’t be as useful for me.”

  Alina ran back with the boots and I pulled out both the Ox and Kobold crystals.

  “Keep calm and don’t disturb Sherry or you won’t get your boots.”

  Sherry deftly performed the crystal fusion like the pro she is. Of course, Alina went back to cheering when she got the completed Dragon-leather Boots of Speed.

  “Alina, that was the Ox crystal you found so this is thanks to you too.”

  All excited, Alina took off running while Sherry and I rested comfortably.

  “David, how did you know the details of how I could become a Runesmith?”

  “I had read about it.”

  “You seem to know even more than the elders and they don't share their secrets with outsiders.”

  “It was a story about a human who worked with a dwarf. I guess the human wrote it.”

  “That story sure was detailed.”

  “It’s also because I know my skills and how they complement yours.”

  “You know, with your powers, you could rule the Dwarven Territories.”

  “Nah, I’m happier with you, Sherry.”

  “Me too, David.”

  ────────────────────────

  [1] In Svic nguages, ‘vodka’ is a diminutive of ‘water’, i.e., ‘little water’. The connotation is more affectionate (dear) than weak so it doesn’t fit Sherry’s expnation perfectly.[2] The simirity of Brahim to Latin isn’t certain, but it has some support in the LN (v11 c3).[3] An’s sves can learn Brahim in just five days (LN: v2 c1). The Tutor job (chapters 6 and 12) is my expnation.[4] Dead Poet’s Society