Chapter 33: Makeover

With quite a bit on his plate, Alex had to hurry. He needed to find a suitable spot for the shop, he needed to make at least one sale as quickly as possible, and he needed to go offline in five hours due to his day job.

Weapon making came first, after slipping into a back alley, making sure there was no one around, Alex produced the key ring from his inventory with a flourish. A quick turn of the key led him into the familiar dump that he currently called a forge.

He found Eggsy, Rambo, and Sarah all lazing about the forge in various stages of boredom.

Upon Alex's arrival, they all jumped over to him with excitement, Eggsy taking her perch firmly on top of Alex's skull, Rambo at his hand, trying desperately to gnaw on his fingers to little success, and Sarah, who sat cheerfully on his shoulder and began to ask about his day.

Stephen uncurled from around Alex's neck, where he had been resting like a scarf.

"So, who's getting a makeover today?"

"Is that what your calling it now?" Alex asked with a little chuckle, "well it's either Eggsy or Sarah, and no offense, but Sarah had a bit more meat on her bones"

"But I don't have meat on my bones" Sarah piped up.

"Semantics," Alex said with a wave of his hand, "anyway, what I'm saying is, Sarah will get the "makeover" first"

"Got a design in mind?" Stephen asked quizzically.

"At first, I was planning to make a shield, it will give me some practice for when the time comes to make Dovakhiin's shield, and it has a wide appeal, those that will probably be able to afford the weapon will be the upper class, and they aren't the most selfless people, defence will appeal to them more, and they go well with almost any other mele weapon"

"Keeping someone else safe sounds nice" Sarah added, seemingly captivated by the idea of being some nobles defender.

"Well, lets get this show on the road"

Alex spent the rest of the morning preparing and refining the metals that would be used, a lengthy process for sure, but a worthwhile one, no shortcuts would be taken while making his first commercial product.

All the while, Alex, Stephen and Sarah discussed the design of the shield.

Stephen wanted to make the shield mor compact and light, while adding on sharpened edges and spikes to make it a more offensive tool, whereas Sarah wanted a more sturdy and bulky design, more so focusing on defence than manoeuvrability, something close to a tower shield.

Alex had tried to make a bladed shield in a previous game, while it was a decent concept, in execution however, it was a little different, he would always cut his hands when trying to equip it for the first few days, and it would get caught in monsters, so he would end up just getting ragdolled while clinging on for dear life, he did not want anyone to experience that.

But, Sarah was a porcupine, spines would most certainly be included, somehow.

After a while, Alex suddenly got a notification telling him to get offline for his job, so he got himself in a comfy position, and logged off.

Alex's day job was nothing too hard, one of his many neighbours had taken pity on him after he lost his job, and offered him a position as a farm hand.

It wasn't the worst job, mostly involving mucking out stables and pens, and sorting the occasional harvest, it was honest work, and Alex enjoyed it.

At midday, Alex took a lunch break, a few cheese and ham sandwiches he made before coming. Leaning against a wooden fence that circled one of the fields, looking up at the sky as great clouds swept across in their idle travel, temporarily blocking out the harsh summer sun, he was sure one of the clouds looked like a middle finger.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Alex turned to see Bob, his employer, sauntering up to him in a pair of baggy overalls and a once white shirt that was now brown from the dirt caking it.

Bob was an old man, approaching his seventies, but he still diligently worked on his farm, his only pride and joy after spending most of his life alone.

"What's there to tell really" Alex said with a cheerful smile, before letting out a small sigh, his expression dropping, "Dad's making me get a job over in Babylon"

"Who named it Babylon anyway?" Bob asked with a look of mild disdain, "didn't it collapse in the original story"

"Yeah, must have been going through a certain phase at the time"

As they spoke, Bob pulled out a small vape from his pocket and took a long puff on it, letting white strawberry flavoured smoke tumble lazily out of his mouth.

"Fuck parents" Bob suddenly said, shocking Alex at the use of language, "my old man was a bit like yours, thought he knew what was best for me, decided that I couldn't make my own decisions, said being an entrepreneur was too risky a career path, tried to stop me"

"How'd that turn out for you?" Alex asked with a small chuckle.

"Terrible, I have more money then I know what to do with, and I can just sit around all day with nothing to do"

"I would happily take some of that extra cash off your hands"

"In your dreams"

The two became silent as a slightly uncomfortable air descended upon the two.

"Do you regret it?" Alex asked, shattering the silence.

"Honestly, it would be a lye to say I didn't, if only a little" Bob answered honestly, "while I'm successful, have a job most would kill for, and probably never have to work for the rest of my life, it does get a little lonely sometimes"

Bob took another puff of his vape as Alex pondered what he had said.

"I spent a lot of time chasing my dream," Bob continued, "time I will never get back, and it had a toll, I was never the most sociable, even from a young age, so when half my job involved wearing a fake smile wo mingle with smiles just as fake, it was tiring, what little free time I had, was spent on my own"

"So in the end, I passed my prime, in my career, I soared, reached heights men could only dream of, but as a human being, I didn't change one bit, I was still the same old kid who'd throw a friend under the bus just to avoid a scolding, to mature to think of love, to naïve to ask for help"

"Stop pretending to be wise" Alex cut in, "it doesn't work when your doing your best impression of a strawberry scented cloud"

Bob choked a little, inhaling some of the smoke.

"*Hak*, *Hak*, honestly, just let an old man have his moment"

"So do you regret it?" Alex asked again with a little more urgency in his voice.

"Regret it?" Bob said with a surprised look, "where you just listening, cause I do"

"So would you change your choice, if you could?"

"Not for the world," Bob replied with a smile, "while I regret it, I would regret it a lot more if I hadn't, many people think life's a game about making as few regrets as possible, but most of the time, it's more about picking what you'll be doing is picking between two regrets, and praying that you pick the one you'll regret the least, besides, you shouldn't rely on a strawberry scented cloud to make your decisions"

"Well," Alex said after a moment of pondering, "I think that's my lunch break, farm ain't gonna run itself"

"I mean, it kind of will, still appreciate the help though"

...

Alex returned home a short time later, his muscles slightly sore from the days work, he had only been in the area for three months, so he still wasn't that used to the physical labour, something he noticed that his life before three months ago sorely lacked.

After a quick dinner of whatever leftovers Alex had in the fridge and some rice, Alex stepped into his pod once more and let his worries fade away.

"Your back," Stephen stated bluntly as Alex jolted awake violently, "you ready to make a start"

"Yeah," Alex said, stretching his abnormally long limbs, "and I had a dumb idea, if you'd indulge me"

Alex spent almost two entire in-game day, simply tinkering and fiddling with a design, he got in contact with MIII and managed to procure some low value items to use in prototypes. and after almost a dozen tries, he managed to get something he liked.

During the entire process he struck up conversation with Stephen and Sarah, chatting about how they had been and what they had gotten up to, before quickly shifting over to the prototype, throwing anything they could against the wall to see if it stuck.

Nicolas even popped in every so often, to give his own input and complain about their money situation, and when Alex went to pick up the materials, MIII had a nice little surprise for him.

"What's this?" Alex asked while twirling a necklace in his hands.

"It's called 'the double life necklace'" MIII explained, "allows you to save one alternative appearance in it which you can switch to at any time"

"And you went behind your superiors back to get this, why?"

"Because if you can produce ego weapons in a steady supply, or heck, even just one, and someone discovers how low your level is, simply walking down a street would be a death sentence, you need some kind of insurance"

"Fair," Alex said, pocketing the necklace, "Oh, and don't worry, my first weapon will be up for sale soon"

"I've been meaning to ask you, can you mass produce the exact same ego weapon?"

"Nope, while I could replicate the shape, its abilities, and as such, its use will never be the same as another weapon I create, besides, entirely one of a kind could be a decent selling point"

"True, just make sure it's out quick, I already sent a report to HQ, and knowing them, news like this will be picked up quick, so it's best that we verify this claim quickly"

...

At the end of the two days, Alex stared at the pile almost twenty prototypes, three ranked as trash, ten as bad, four at acceptable, and two at good.

But all of Alex's focus was on a decently sized shield that seemed to sparkle in the soft glow of the furnace, a thick forest of stone spines lined it's front, pressing close to it's flat side.

[Weapon name: Noble guard

Grade: C

Quality: Great

Classification: Armour/Machine/Weapon (Gauntlet/Shield)

Defense: 30

Attack: 10

Effect: can switch between three modes, switching between modes 1 and two swaps attack with defence,, switching to mode 3 takes a third of the defence value and adds it to the attack value, con +2, Str +2

Materials used: Lesser guardian porcupine bone, Lesser guardian porcupine flesh, Lesser guardian porcupine skin, Lesser guardian porcupine Needles, Lesser guardian porcupine mana cords

A shield made by an amateur craftsman, taking his first steps onto the path of the hammer and anvil, while the shield is of good quality, it is ultimately hurt by the craftsman's decision to make a rather cluttered design, trying to incorporate both high defending and attacking potential. The shield has a mess of internal components inside, making it a lot heavier than it should be, but the crafter has put extra care into the stability of the internals, sacrificing a bit of functionality in the process but gaining reliability]

Alex fiddled with with the mechanisms one last time, clicking a small button on the side of the handle.

Small mechanical clicks reverberated around the cramped forge in satisfying sequence, and the spines on the front of the shield flipped up to point upwards before clicking into place.

He had purposely made the spines as smooth and unlikely to catch as possible, getting stuck in a monster is not a good plan.

clicking the button once more caused the mechanism to reset, returning to its original shape.

Another button on the opposite handle was pressed, causing a singular loud click to come from the handle, and it sharply twisted it a full one-hundred and eighty degrees, causing the shield to bend around his hand and lock into place with a few more clicks, forming something akin to a gauntlet.

Alex let out a soft smile, feeling like a proud parent, watching their child take their first steps.

"The first product is now fully operational," He called out to Sarah, who sat by the pile of prototypes, inspecting each with curiosity, "how'd you like your new body?"