April 10, 2039

As Aaron walked into the workshop, he was just amazed. It was like he had walked into the clothing section at a department store, but everything was made out of leather. There were six different mannequins lined up, all of them were dressed in leather armor. There was a mannequin for each of the races.

Lining the ceiling, there was a taxidermy trophy from the games monsters. Aaron saw the beetle that he had just fought mounted next to a dragonfly. A large rat’s head was on a plaque next to it. The next plaque that he saw was the head of a bunny. The only difference between the game’s creature and a standard pet bunny was the fact that it was a bit larger and it had a large boney nub sticking out of the center of its forehead.

Glancing down towards the far right of the line of trophies. The one at the end stood out. It was almost a dragon, but not quite. It had red scales and it’s head was much thinner and flatter than the Dragonkin that he had seen. It’s head stuck out about two feet from the plaque that mounted it to the wall.

Aaron would have stood there longer to look at all of the trophies, but Karion nudged him out of the doorway and into the room. In the middle of the open work area was a huge desk full of leather working tools. Seated behind the table was a female Orc wearing leathers. She had black hair tied in a ponytail with light gray skin tone. She was using a small chisel on a leather helmet.

She glanced up from a precise pattern that she was carving into the helmet. “Well, this looks like trouble. Three strong, handsome Dragonkin walking into my work shop. James, I will never get this order done if you keep interrupting me.”

Karion raised his right hand. “Hi Aunt Molly! You said if I found you a new gatherer, you would show me how to make the coin purse. I found Lexen here. I brought him over after his second kill!”

Molly nodded, “In that case, give me a few more moments to finish this rune and I’ll show you. James, would you get me a low quality small leather piece and a foot long leather strip?” She gave Karion some instructions of how much leather to cut, where to punch holes, and how to thread the cord.

As James started walking over to the supply cabinet, Karion spoke up again. “Aunt Molly, would you mind doing a conversion rune on it once it’s done? I want to make it worth while for him, also, you are the best at this!”

Molly swung around from giving her husband instructions and stared at Karion for a moment. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but those are not free to make. Even the most basic one requires a gemstone.”

Karion tossed the same gold coin that he got a few moments ago from James over to Molly. “It’s ok. I know he’s good for it. I want to get good at this and I want him to be able to use it for a while.”

Molly thought about it and nodded. Looking straight at Aaron. “With this gemstone and other supplies, you would be looking at owing him two gold. Are you ok with that? My nephew is a good kid and I’d hate for him to be mistaken about trusting everyone .”

Aaron just shrugged.”I’ve only been on for about an hour now, so I don’t have any coins yet. I really only have the loot from a beetle and a rat. I kind of doubt that stuff would sell for that much. I would like to know what we are talking about first though. Would you mind explaining Molly?”

“First off, it’s Aunt Molly. You come in my shop with my nephew and you are wearing nothing but you corpse run undies. I don’t care how old you are. You call me Aunt Molly.”

Aaron heard his wife’s voice over the game sounds. “Ok. I like her a lot.” Aaron nodded to Molly. “Fair enough. I will certainly repay him the two gold Aunt Molly. I still want to understand exactly what we are talking about though.”

Karion had the piece of leather and the strip of leather. He was busy measuring out and marking spots on the leather with a tool. He had already taken the leather cord and prepped it. He brought it up to Aunt Molly and held it out for her to look at.

Molly looked it over and then handed it back to Karion. “That looks great Craig. Go ahead and punch the holes you marked and thread the cord. Then, bring it back over here. James, grab a turquoise for me please.”

James brought over the stone and in a few moments Karion brought over a leather pouch and proudly announced that he hit leather crafting 3. After a round of congratulations, Molly took the pouch and opened it up. On the inside, she started to carve a series of lines and swirls.

As she worked, she started to explain. “ I have two main skills. Primarily, I do leather working. You can make some amazing things. It’s mostly for the Damage Per Second crowd. Warriors can use it of course, but it focuses more on dexterity and wisdom rather than strength and endurance. This is the part where it gets interesting though. Runic Initiation can be done within thirty minutes of an items creation. There are different runes for everything from fire damage, to cold protection, to increased defense. What I am doing here is a utility rune called a conversion rune. The short answer is that this pouch will take your lesser value coins and convert them into higher value ones. This is just very useful, so you don’t need to worry about having so many small coins.”

She finished carving and set the small chisel aside. Picking up the piece of turquoise, she placed it on top of the rune. Looking straight into Lexen’s eyes she continued. “How often and what lesser coins depends on the material used. A low quality leather piece and a low value gemstone like a turquoise will limit the rune. Once completed, this one will convert only copper and only once per day. No more than three coins generated.” Suddenly, she pushed pushed downward with both hands like she was doing CPR. With a loud crack, the gemstone shattered. Karion and Aaron both jumped at the sudden noise.

Marie and Val started laughing before James and Molly did. After a moment, Aaron and Karion did as well. Molly was clapping her hands. “Oh, if you could see the looks on your faces!”

At this point, there was a minor commotion outside. There was flashing green lights and excited talking.

The door swung open and a beautiful Elven woman with grass green hair walked into the workshop. She was wearing leather pants and leather top with a jacket that opened up at the waist and tailed down to her mid calves.

Val exclaimed. “Wow! Becky wasn’t kidding. She looks great! Tell her that I’m here watching too.”

Aaron looked up and saw the name Sevona floating above her head. She runway model walked about half way across the workshop before dropped the posturing with a laugh. She froze for a moment and Aaron heard Val’s cell phone chirp. Val laughed as Sevona walked forward with a normal gait.

“Hey, Mr. Lawson! Val told me that you started playing AE. I think that’s awesome! I wanted to come see for myself!”

Aaron reached out his hand to shake. “Hello Sevona, it’s good to see you again.” Becky was Val’s best friend from high school. They had been friends since fourth grade and he couldn’t count how many sleepovers and birthday parties he had driven her to and from.

She walked right past his hand and gave him a hug. “I only logged onto say Hi, but I want you to add me to your friends list. I get some nice buffs and can help teleport you to the groves outside of most cities. So let me know if you need anything. Speaking of buffs.” She started to glow green and a soft glow of the same color surrounded Aaron, Karion, James, and Molly.

Aaron noticed a wooden shield icon appeared on the upper right corner of his display. When Aaron moved the pointer to the shelf, the information popped up.

Wooden armor: +10 to armor. No level restrictions.

Sevona looked around and suddenly realized where she was at. “Wow! Look at all the leather! How did you find a place like this so fast Mr. Lawson?” Sensing a sale, Molly stood up with the completed coin pouch and walked over to Aaron and Sevona. She handed the pouch to Aaron and positioned herself in front of Sevona . “I love your outfit! You have got to tell me about each piece. I want to know if you picked it for the stats or just how amazing it makes you look. I think I can certainly help you accessorize or maybe even help you upgrade!” With the two women started talking about Sevona’s armor, Aaron knew he was completely forgotten.

At this point, the door opened and the two brothers came running in. They came up to Karion and Aaron. “Did she give you guys the armor buff too?” After seeing the head nods, they tuned to James. “It’d be a shame to waste this buff and an insult to a guest! Can we take a break to go grind some xp?” James laughed. “We certainly can’t insult our guest. Be back in an hour.”

Mark ran over to one of the boxes and William grabbed Karion and Aaron by the arm and pulled them to the door. Pulling out a leather chest piece, Mark ran to catch the group. He yelled over his shoulder, “Dad, Can Lexen borrow this old chest piece? Thanks!” As the door slammed behind them.

Aaron caught the leather chest piece that Mark tossed to him. “Here, equip this. That buff is great, but we need a little more to work with.”

When he added the leather chest piece to his inventory, he clicked on the information for the armor.

Low quality leather chest piece: 12 armor. +2 Dexterity +1 Wisdom

Another click on the armor piece made it appear on his chest. The leather was a dull grey. It was suspiciously the same color as the rat skin coin pouch he just received. Aaron was very impressed. In all of the previous games that he had played, crafted armor did not have stat bonuses for quite a while. This one seemed to be made with starting creatures and entry level skill.

William nodded approvingly, then addressed the group. “Ok. We have an hour off and a nice armor boost. We need to kill a lot of things and fast! Lexen, you pretty much got us the buff by bringing in the druid and she is distracting Mom and Dad. You get first dibs. Anything in particular that you need to kill?”

“I just have two newbie quests to kill beetles, dragonflies, and spiders. The beetles seem easy, I’m not sure about the other two.” Karion joined the conversation. “If you are going for the Steelscale armor, you will need rat meat next and I could certainly use some more pelts.”

Mark was suddenly in a full set of grey leather armor except for the helmet. He had a quiver of arrows and a tall bow. “It’s settled than. We wipe out everything in the valley on our way to the spider cave. They get big enough in there to get us some good xp and should finish your quest.

He nocked an arrow and started running at the insects walking around near the gates. He stopped for a moment and launched an arrow at a beetle. William was now in dark brown robes and holding a long wooden staff. The robe had long slits up the sides for the legs and tail. He pointed the staff at a dragonfly and a small spike of ice flew at it. The icicle missed the insect, but the dragonfly still came flying towards William. Karion yelled as he ran to help Mark with the beetle, “Stick with William!” Aaron stepped to intercept William’s insect.

As the dragonfly darted in, Aaron slashed down with his sword. The dragonfly darted around the blade and lashed the long tail aspect of its body against Aaron, A red 2 popped up in front of his eyes. Suddenly, a burst of flames engulfed the dragonfly and it crashed to the ground. Aaron slashed downward into the dragonfly sending a red 5 off of it. As the dragonfly started to take to the air again, an arrow pinned it to the ground.

William cheered. “That works great! We do that until we have all those bugs you need. Then, all four of us on the rats.”

The next fifteen minutes brought about the death of eleven more beetles and nine more dragonflies. Aaron had looted everything as the others said that they didn’t need any of the bug loot. When he picked up the last piece of dragonfly meat, a pop up filled his view.

Feeding the brood: You have gathered the requested meats. Return them to Commander Harvin for your reward.

Aaron let the group know about the notification. Karion clapped Aaron on the shoulder. “You will love the bracers! Let’s get moving. Rats and spiders await us.”

In response, Mark shot a nearby rat and brought it charging towards the group. He was able to get in another arrow before the rat got too close. When it got close enough, Aaron kicked the rat in the head, sending a red 3 into the air and stunning it for a moment. While it was stunned, it was hit with Karion’s two handed ax, another arrow from Mark, and an icicle from William. Under the stress from that attack, the rat fell.

Karion pointed his ax at the rat. “Lexen, go ahead and loot the meat. Do you guys mind if I take the pelts?” The brothers shrugged saying they have had more than enough pelts.

A few moments later, Karion stood and showed his new pelt to the brothers. They looked over it quickly and announced it was quality.

On their way to the spider cave near the other side of the gate, they killed three more rats. Aaron was surprised when another pop up appeared in front of him.

One handed slashing weapons skill has increased to level 2!

“I didn’t realize that there were weapon skill levels.” Aaron said to himself. Karion nodded and answered anyway. “That’s right. As a warrior, you can level any weapon. It works the same way as trade skills. You can get 5 skill levels per character level.”

Mark led them to a dark cave near the large tree that Aaron saw when he first exited the city. There were spiders the size of an adult’s hand, it was a very dark brown with short, bristled hair.

Aaron heard a chair push back. “I need to go work on some homework for tomorrow. I’ll see you upstairs.” Val’s voice grew fainter as she went up the stairs. Ever since watching some old horror movies with Becky, Val had been squeamish about spiders. These were unpleasant looking examples of the species too. It sounded like they would only get nastiest the deeper into the cave that he went.

Suddenly, Aaron heard a buzzing sound and saw the profile of a human male with the name Macksimus in green lettering arching over the picture. “One moment guys.” Aaron said and stepped back away from the cave.

When he clicked on the picture, the word connected appeared next to his name. “Hey Aaron, are you completely lost yet?”

“Macksimus huh? Actually, I met a really cool family that does leather work. Then, Val’s friend tracked me down and buffed the whole family and me. Now, we are getting ready to go into a spider cave.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure the first person to play chose the right spelling. This works though. Everyone just calls me Mack. If you are already grouped, just stay with them for a bit. You said that they do leather work?”

Aaron already had an idea. “Yeah, I’ll be done here in about 30 minutes. How about meeting me at the city gates and I’ll introduce you.”

Mack agreed to meet up after he finished a few things. Aaron clicked off of the conversation with Mack and found that the group had already killed two spiders at the entrance.