---A day later---
“Seth, I think you should have a look at this,” Sivri called out to him when they were looking through the third branch of the player association. Unlike before, this place was truly empty. The floors were littered with cut-down undead mixed with dried blood.
“Soone else was here before us?” the blacksmith asked a little surprised.
Quite a few of the weapon crates and so of the armor crates in the storage were emptied. Monsters wouldn't do sothing like this, and invaders probably wouldn't know. So it had to be people from Urth.
Although this place was at the edge of the city center, it was still a very dangerous area for scavengers to enter. To think that there were still groups in Y-City left that dared to venture here was surprising and concerning. What if they were also a servant of so creature, spending their ti killing fellow citizens for strength?
Looking at what they took, they at least didn't know what they were doing. Despite the crates being labeled R and E respectively, they had emptied several crates of rare items but mostly ignored the epic crates.
Their haul was slightly compromised but they got 100 complete epic sets and 295 rare ones. Adding them to what he already had, Seth now had enough uniform armor sets for little more than half of the 2600 good golems, after looting half the places marked on the map. Things were looking promising.
When Seth ca back outside, he saw a golem fly by and crash into a building to the side. Looking to see what was going on, Seth worked his way through the crowd of golems, surrounding a new creature attacking the golems.
A an-looking little man wearing a dandy, red suit and a crimson hat. He had a savage expression, with a massive black beard, and kept jumping around kicking the golems with boots covered in crimson aura.
“Yoz won't git ma treasure!” he screeched, kicking away the pike of another golem and kicking it away in the sa motion. Upon landing it made another turn, charging at the next closest golem. It was about to cave in the machine's chest when a red-gloved hand caught its ankle.
“You can communicate. Didn't you hear my announcent?” the bard's pleasant voice entered the man's ears. Seth had already thought of this when he realized that Donnchadh had worked with the scavengers. So of these beings were obviously able to understand their language, so they could probably be reasoned with.
“Thieeves! Thieves! wants lay down and lets you take treasure!” it cried, swinging for Seth, however, its reach was not enough for the blacksmith to even feel the wind. It also didn't the flexibility to bend up to its ankle and try to free itself from his grasp.
While it was struggling, Seth appraised the shoes it was wearing, the most dangerous part about the little fella.
The left boot was similar, but the values of strength and agility were switched.
“Nice shoes,” Seth complinted with an impressed.
“Let go of 's foot!” Strik struggled.
“Only if you promise to have a talk with ,” Seth gave a condition.
“Stop these tins from takin 's treasure and we's can talk!” Strik answered indignantly. At the wave of a hand, the golems froze.
“Good?” “Yeah.”
Seth let go of the little man's ankle. The other flipped in the air and landed on his feet. He crossed his arms, looking at the bard. Although Strik was still huffy, it seed he was open for negotiations.
“Let's start from the beginning. I'm the Tower Master of Minas Mar. For safety reasons, I'm cleaning this place out from dangerous creatures and valuables left in the ruins.”
“Yous are just a scavenge, like the other guyses!” the other accused him.
“Well, sure, but I'm rich enough already. I'm not doing this to gain anything, It's a necessity to protect the survivors that had to leave their hos here,” Seth justified his actions. Strik squinted at him.
“Thats'is not the fulls truth, but also no lie... ” he mumbled confused.
“Was the creature able to detect lies?” Seth wondered in surprise.
“I'm Strik.” it introduced itself after his mumbling.
“Well, I have more than one reason to be here, it's not like I have to justify myself here. But who are you? And why did you attack the golems?” the bard ignored the matter for now and got to the topic.
“Theys be stealing my treasure! s did everything as tolds, but these trying to empty storage!” the little man blad, pointing at the still golems.
“But why don't you-”
-have your treasure in your inventory if it's so precious? He didn't finish asking that question, as he understood the answer. Like Donnchadh, this guy was not a player and didn't have an inventory space.
“I understand the problem now. If you show your treasure, I will tell the golems to avoid it,” Seth assured it. He was also curious about what a creature capable of making epic items would treasure. Strik pouted, and his face turned all crumply for a mont, but he ultimately nodded.
The blacksmith followed the little man into the building on the other side of the street, opposite the player association/ police station. He led him down to the basent. The place reeked of alcohol and when Seth followed it through a maintenance door, he suddenly entered a full-fledged shoemaker's workshop.
Rolls of leather, rows of tools, workbenches, an intricate sewing machine, everything one needed to make showed and fit the little shoemaker's size. The leathers were mostly epic, with so rare ones at the lowest. There were also so finished epic and rare boots and showed on a shelf at the side. No wonder the golems tried to loot the place. He deliberately ignored that the floor was covered in looted liquor bottles.
“What is a talented shoemaker like you doing in these ruins?” Seth asked freely, staring at Strik's works. He wasn't just a shoemaker, all of them had magical effects, that were clearly a sign that he was also an enchanter.
“ likes my privacy. Those seelie folk always coming around, demanding shoes! 's an artist! An artist! won't work to order! Listen to the leather, give it the shape it needs, that's work!” Strik's said passionately. No wonder he got pissed when the golems tried to take his items.
“Just to make sure, you aren't so evil creature that has people sacrifice humans to you in exchange for footwear, right?” the bard asked. He had to make sure. However, Strik didn't answer, he only stared at him incredulously. This was probably answer enough.
“Don't look at like this. I t another dude, who exchanged armor and weapons for human sacrifices. Really creepy thing simply refused to die.”
“You t a Nem Marvo and lived?” Strik asked even more incredulous.
“Lived? I killed it. That douche delayed my golems for almost half a day.” Seth complained, despite having a great windfall thanks to this hold-up.
“Haha, killed it you did? Suuure. Who youz thinks you are? Cathain? Slayed it with a wooden yew sword and buried it upside down, didja?” Strik asked laughing.
“Who is Cathain? Is that how you kill it? That sound so weird. I just ripped out its soul...” the blacksmith asked confused. Strik slowly stopped laughen and suddenly looked at Seth in shock.
“Youz didn't lie there,” he stated with wide open eyes and took a few steps back. The shoemaker had realized that not only didn't Seth not lie about killing a Nem Marvo, but he also didn't lie about ripping out its soul.
“Please don't takes soul!” he screeched and backed away into a corner.
“Relax, it's not like a need a shoemaker's soul...or do I?” Seth tried to calm him, but his sentence suddenly trailed off. The blacksmith thought of what he could use a magic shoemaker's soul for. A crafting station for footwear may sound weird at first, but on second thought, it could be really useful to have soone specialized in making leather footwear instead of leaving it to the tailors.
He couldn't help but laugh, seeing the little man's pitiful face, he was so close to crying just at Seth playing with the thought of taking his soul.
“Don't worry, I'm not just killing soone for their souls. At least I try to look for a justification to do it. Like, if you were so evil creature feeding on humans,” Seth tried to calm the shoemaker down.
Strik pricked his slightly pointy ears.
“ knows! knows soone youz can take the souls without regret!” he suddenly shouted.
“Dig Dimblood, is he's na! A dirty little cobbler without honor he is. And one of them moneyguzzlers with an evil strain! All about gold and misfortune they are. Has fun to watch people suffer! ” Strik shook himself, thinking of the creature he described.
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