A flood of words spilled out of the young smith’s mouth, coming so fast that Jadis only caught half of what she said. In fact, she suspected not all of the words being said were English, or Imperial, or whatever the common language was called. All the while she was jumping up and down while clutching onto Jadis’ hand like a lifeline, gripping so tightly Jadis was starting to worry she was going to lose feeling in her fingers.
“Hold up, hold up!” Jay tried to cut in, raising her free hand to catch the half-elf’s attention with no success. The girl just kept going.
Finally, Dys and Syd walked up and put a hand on either of Sabina’s shoulders, firmly holding her in place as Jay grabbed the girl’s hands in hers and leaned down lower, putting her face close to the smith’s adorably cute one so she didn’t have to shout over the din of the forge behind her.
“I can’t understand you when you talk that fast. If we’re going to work out a deal, we need to talk calmly, okay?”
Sabina had stopped her onslaught of babbling words as soon as Jay had brought her face close to hers. Upon hearing Jay’s pronouncement, her face darkened in an embarrassed blush, her pointed ears twitching sporadically.
“I’m sorry! I got a little excited and I didn’t think you three would show up here and ask for me and I had just been thinking of what kind of armor I could make for you and the timing is just so amazing and—”
Jay put one finger on Sabina’s lips, silencing her run-on sentence and making her blush even more deeply.
“Okay, you’re excited, I can tell,” Jay nodded, grinning at the blushing half-elf. “Let’s go talk somewhere a little quieter, okay? And you can cool your head while we walk. Is that alright?”
Sabina nodded, her face still flushed, but didn’t try to speak.
Withdrawing her finger and letting go of the smith, Jadis looked around and saw Aila standing off to the side, giving her a raised eyebrow look of both amusement and concern, her eyes darting to the half-elf practically vibrating with enthusiastic energy. Not sure what to say, Dys just gave her a little shrug so Sabina couldn’t see.
Leading the way, Jay headed from the forge and took Aila and Sabina through a different alley, towards the open air of the docks.
The docks weren’t exactly quiet, with even more people and soldiers going about their business unloading or loading supplies from or onto the different sailing vessels moored at the port. There was, however, an overlook along the large oceanside thoroughfare that served as the main route for workers to bring supplies between the docks and the crafter’s quarters. It was a little more out of the way and any passersby on the road were at enough of a distance that they wouldn’t hear much if anything at all.
The ocean was a deep blue and the wind coming off of it was chilly, almost enough to make Jadis wish for a few coats. She could see an ocean wall had been built trailing around from the large cliff overlooking the city, breaking the waves there and keeping the port waters calm. In the far distance she spotted the white sails of another ship coming in, or maybe just patrolling the waters for all she knew.
Jadis had to wonder, in a fantasy world like Oros, were sea monsters a legitimate concern?
Were mermaids a thing?
Shaking the thought away, Jadis focused on the task at hand. Jay sat on the stone wall of the overlook while Syd took up position standing next to her. Dys stood a little further back towards the road, keeping one eye on the people passing by, the other surreptitiously tracking the two guards that had followed the group. Aila stood to the other side of Jay across from Syd.
Looking slightly more composed, Sabina stood a few paces before Jay and apologized in a bashful tone.
“I’m sorry for babbling. When I get excited everything up there just wants to come out all at once, you know?” she said, motioning towards her head with one hand.
“It’s fine,” Jay said, smiling kindly. “We just couldn’t keep up with most of what you were saying. Imperial isn’t our first language.”
A small lie, if technically true. English was Jadis’ first language, not Imperial, but it was a good cover for some of her slip-ups with words and phrases not used by the locals.
“Oh, right, of course, that makes sense,” Sabina nodded, her eyes shining with that slight golden light. “Everyone was saying you three couldn’t be from the Empire, that you had to be unknown natives or something. You speak Imperial really well, by the way, your accent is a bit weird but your words and grammar are great!”
So people were talking about her. No surprise, Jadis supposed. She’d have to keep an ear out for any of those rumors, find out exactly what people were saying about her.
“Thanks,” Jay grinned. “So, what were you saying about thinking of making armor for us?”
Sabina’s face flushed again and her ears shifted back like a dog that had been caught doing something bad. Jadis was beginning to suspect that the best way to observe an elf’s emotional state was watching how their ears moved. Then again, Vraekae’s ears hadn’t moved at all during their meeting. Maybe Sabina was just bad at controlling her emotions? Seemed to fit.
“Did I say that?” Sabina asked, her hands clasped together in front of her, fingers wringing each other. “Um. Well, I may have spotted you three yesterday evening when I was passing through the town square and the rumors were right, you three really are giants,” the smith explained, glancing at the grinning Syd. “And even if you three aren’t strength builds, with those frames and muscles I’m positive you could handle some heavy plate. I’ve got a lot of ideas for some plate armor that I’d like to try and I know it’d look amazing on women like you.”
The last was said with an earnest desperation that actually made Jadis blush a little, though it didn’t come across on her marble-like skin.
“Then it’s great luck that we ran into each other!” Syd responded, grinning and giving the half-elf a wink. “We’re in desperate need of new armor, as you can see.”
“And you seem to be in desperate need of someone to make armor for,” Jay continued, smirking. “How about we work something out?”
“Yes! Please!” Sabina said, almost rushing forward but clearly restraining herself. “I’ve got so many ideas that I know could work on giants like you three with a lot of strength. Are you focused on strength with your attributes? All three of you? Cause if you are I have some ideas for heavy armor and shields that could be amazing!”
“We’re strong, yes,” Jay confirmed. “And heavy armor sounds great. We’re getting pretty tired of wearing leather armor that can’t stop much.”
“Or no armor at all,” Syd added.
“Before you four get ahead of yourselves,” Aila broke into the conversation, acting as a voice of reason, “We need to discuss cost. A full set of heavy plate is a high cost. Multiplied by three and we’re looking at a lot of coin. Plus, plate armor can take weeks to make for just one set and Jay, Dys, and Syd need a set each. Maybe take a moment to think about the logistics of this transaction?”
Jadis grimaced on all three of her selves, Aila’s sound logic grounding her from the infectious excitement coming from Sabina. Considering the funds she had now and the needs she had to fulfil for the immediate future, she couldn’t afford to let the cute half-elf just run off on her own tangent. And from the look on Sabina’s face, she seemed to realize there were limitations as well.
“I’ll give you a discount!” the smith chirped, bouncing once on her toes. “A big one! I don’t eat a lot and my rent is already paid for the next month so I can cut the cost down to—”
“Woah, hold up, that’s not going to work,” Syd cut the girl off. “You deserve appropriate pay for your work. Don’t go promising us the moon and then starve yourself to get it.”
“How about this,” Jay said, spreading her arms wide. “Make us something quick and basic, like a breastplate or something to protect our vitals. We’ll pay you for that work and if we’re all happy with what we get, we can take our order to the next step, okay?”
Sabina pouted for a moment but quickly brightened. “Fair! You won’t regret hiring me! I can craft some basic chest protection in no time!”
“Deal,” Jay said, holding out her hand.
This time, Sabina took it in a more reasonable fashion, hand clasping at Jadis’ wrist in a firm grip.
“Can I get your chest measurements? I’m pretty good at guessing inches by eye but it’s best to confirm.”
Jadis readily agreed to the request and since she wasn’t wearing a leather chest piece, Syd kneeled on the ground and let Sabina measure her.
The half-elf pulled a long string with colored markings on it, quickly whipping it around Syd’s neck, across her shoulders, her back, her chest, and torso. As she measured, the half-elf mumbled constantly to herself, memorizing the sizes.
“Wow. Your chest is huge…” Sabina said, then began coughing violently. “I mean! No it’s not! Wait, no, not that it’s small, it’s huge compared to most people! I mean, your chest is really quite proportional for your size!”
Jadis tried not to laugh at the smith’s embarrassment and waved her concern off. She couldn’t help but send a cheeky smile Aila’s way, the redhead seemingly catching a bit of proximity embarrassment from Sabina.
One thing that intrigued Jadis was the fact that Sabina was measuring her in what looked like actual inches, the same as used in America back on Earth. The languages being the same Jadis had assumed was some trick of D, maybe altering her own speech patterns so she could understand the native language, but the fact that Oros had inches and feet, too? There had to be something going on with that. It was too unnatural to be a coincidence.
“Hey, can I see that measuring string for a second?” Syd asked.
Taking the string from Sabina with no objection, Syd stood to her full height and dangled the string down from her head to her feet. There was barely enough string to run her full height. Jay stood and quickly checked but couldn’t read what the markings on the string meant.
“What’s this mean?” Jay asked Aila, pointing to the mark Syd had held with her thumb.
Glancing at the string, Aila answered, “One hundred and nine inches.”
Now Jadis knew. She was nine feet tall, plus an inch.
She wasn’t sure what to do with the information, but it was nice to finally have an answer to the question. No wonder she’d thought normal humans were dwarves when she first saw them. She was fucking massive.
“Hey, would any of this metal be useful to you?” Dys asked on impulse. She’d been carrying the bundle of looted weapons from the wretches and held them up, showing them to Sabina.
“Hm. Ah! Yes, actually,” she said after taking a closer look. “I can melt this down and use it for the armor. If you give these to me, I’ll subtract them from the materials cost.”
Agreeing to the exchange, Dys passed the bundle to Sabina who seemed to have no trouble taking the load of weapons under arm.
“Speak of, do you know anyone who can make us some better weapons than this?” Syd asked, showing her the makeshift spear she was still wielding.
The smith grimaced at the crudely constructed weapon. “I can make weapons, too, but that would also take time. What are you looking for? I can talk to some of the other smiths and see if anyone has anything that might work or can craft something quickly.”
“We’ve been getting along pretty well with blunt objects like this,” Jay held up her mallet, giving it an easy one-handed swing. “But we’re not picky. We don’t have any skills that favor one particular type of weapon over another. We just want gear that’s sturdier than the stuff we’ve got right now.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do!” Sabina said cheerfully.
Taking a few more minutes to hash out the price, Jadis gave Sabina ten silver eagle coins, with a promise of another ten on completion of the breastplates. The smith insisted the armor would be done by tomorrow, though Aila’s skeptical look expressed a lot of doubt in that claim. Jadis wasn’t so sure either. She’d never seen an armor smith at work, but three chest plates in just a day seemed ambitious to her.
Taking their leave of the smiling and waving half-elf, the three of Jadis and Aila headed down the road and back towards the main market square.
“We may as well see about fitting you for some decent clothes,” Aila told her, pointing at the rags Jadis was wearing on her bodies. “But I hope we can get to hunting some demons this afternoon though.”
“Me too,” Jay said agreeably. Remembering the newest skill she’d acquired though, she leaned down as they walked and whispered into Aila’s ear.
“We’ve got a new ritual with our latest level that might interest you.”
Aila glanced up at Jay’s sly grin, her face masked in neutral placidity.
“What kind of activity does this ritual entail?” she asked, tone even.
“Something a lot more fun than dancing,” Jay replied, keeping her voice low.
“A lot messier, too,” Dys added from Aila’s other side.
“Lots of panting and sweating, ideally,” Syd said from behind, finally drawing a reaction out of Aila.
Keeping her head level and posture straight, Aila ignored the blush that was creeping along her freckled cheeks. “We can talk about it when we’re in private.”
Jadis grinned wickedly.
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