Chapter 65 – Time to sail away.

Roland looked at the road beneath this caravan. It had changed from being one made from dirt to something better. It was a paved road instead which showed that he was really close to a larger city. This also indicated that they had probably gotten away from the lawless lands and monsters.

It had been over a day since the bandit encounter. Everyone here was still on edge and Roland could tell that people had a hard time sleeping. Surprisingly during the previous night, they weren’t attacked by anything. Neither monster nor bandit had crossed their way, it looked like it was finally over.

‘I should probably look over my things before we arrive.’

Roland started removing the various pouches along with his belt. He had gained more of them thanks to the encounter with the bandits. He was now in possession of some new weapons. They weren’t well made, nor were they enchanted but the materials from which they were produced made him smile.

Both of these weapons were made from deep iron. To produce deep steel you used a similar procedure as for getting regular steel.

To make regular everyday steel, iron ore was first mined from the ground. It was then smelted in a blast furnace to have the impurities removed. After this, a small amount of carbon would be added, usually, it was below 1%.

The smelting process with deep iron was practically the same. The biggest problem was that this mineral had a lot of mana in it. It was a lot harder to melt than plain iron ore and required special magical blast furnaces.

They had added enchantments or runes to increase the heat and also make them more resistant to it. The carbon added was also a special kind that had also absorbed mana before.

The finished product would produce an item that was a lot harder and resistant. Even a crude weapon made from deep steel would break a finely made steel one. It was just a tier above and it was also the metal of choice for tier 2 adventurers. It was the metal that runesmiths worked the most with as well, it was far more common than something like mithril or orichalcum.

Roland looked over these two items. The mace was just a club made from metal. The type of mace he was holding was a flanged mace. The flange on this one was slightly spiky and added a lot of weight. He could probably bash a lot of goblin heads in with this thing and it would be really proficient against opponents with heavier armor.
If someone was going against a knight in full plate mail armor, he wouldn’t get far while using a one-handed sword. Metallic armors were really good at protecting its user against slashing and piercing attacks. On the other hand, they weren’t so good against blunt force, even less if the person in the armor got hit on the head. The force traveled through the armor and could even cause internal damage.

Roland looked over this mace, it was chipped here and there but it could be repaired. A weapon that was for bashing in skulls didn’t need that much tending too. If it was a sword that lost its sharp blade, it would be another thing.

The dagger on the other hand looked a lot worse. The blade was dull, chipped and even part of the tip was missing. He would need to grind a lot of it down to make the edge uniform again. It was still repairable but the blade on it would have to be shortened.

‘I can still add a rune on it, with it being deep steel it will last quite a bit more than those wands of mine…’

The mace was better as a weapon for now but it was still only made from deep iron and not deep steel. The dagger on the other hand was a finished product that went well with his runes. He just needed to get his rune condensation skill increased to fit a common one on it.

The ax that Golgrim had taken might have looked like the best weapon out of the bunch. For him that wasn’t the case, he had already lifted the rune that was on the ax for himself. He had the schematic and could put that enchantment on any of these two weapons.

The two-handed ax was also a bit too big for his frame, he would rather use a shield weapon combo. A shield also had a lot of unused surface space that he could place mana stones in. Putting several defensive spells on it that would barely use any mana wouldn’t be that hard.

Speaking of mana stones Roland was in possession of quite a few. Besides the ones he had amassed during the trek towards the small village, there were also a bunch in the bandit’s possession.

He now had a large bag filled to the brim with common and lesser grade mana stones. If he got himself a working smithy he would be able to deck himself out with them from head to toe. The only problem was leaving the gem-like items outside the armor.

These stones weren’t that resistant, the lesser ones could be broken down with a hard smack of a rock. The common ones were harder but a good direct smack with a metal weapon would put cracks in it.

He would need to think about a good design for anything like that. From his perspective, it would be better to place the sockets on the inside of the armor pieces. On places that wouldn’t get in the way that is. He needed some strategic places on the outside as well, some that wouldn’t normally be aimed at.

While he was contemplating new crafting designs they finally arrived at the port city. He could see some of the villagers hugging each other and crying as if a weight had fallen from their shoulders. They had been walking for two days almost without sleeping, afraid of being attacked.

Roland wasn’t sure what the authorities would do in this situation, this was the first time he was involved in a bandit attack. He didn’t think that they would be questioning him much, the merchants that survived would be enough.

There was a bit of trouble with getting in through the gate at first but after giving an explanation they got in. The adventurers headed straight for their guild, probably to make a report and maybe to ask if some of their other companions survived.

After the man-made avalanche, the middle part of the caravan was taken out. The ones at the front were the ones here. The people that were in the back had to contend with a barricade of rocks though while the ones in front could mostly get through as Roland had made a large hole in that barricade with a fire blast spell.

Even if someone survived, they might still be somewhere down in the gorge or they might have backtracked into one of the villages on the other side. There would probably be a rescue party being formed, that is if the city officials here agreed on giving the adventurers money for it. If not, none of them would be going there for free.

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He himself needed to get a few things taken care of as well. With the increase of his bags of holding there was a lot of clutter in there. He had taken a share of the bandit’s armor and steel weapons. They were mostly in bad shape and served no purpose. He decided to sell most of these useless items while keeping the ones that were in the best shape for himself.

Roland didn’t really want to hang around this caravan anymore. He wasn’t with the adventurers so he wouldn’t be making a report. It pained him that he wouldn’t be able to get a reward for his troubles. He had gotten enough items to net him some golden coins though, it would be a good boost to his workshop budget.

He would probably need to order some stuff from the blacksmiths that lived there at first. This was fine as he wanted to do some dungeon dives before continuing with his craft. He wanted to gain some more battle experience and then figure out how his class could be utilized for it. Some designs and spell combinations were already floating in his head, if they would work out in the field would have to be tasted.

Roland arrived at an armorer’s shop. He didn’t beat around the bush for much and quickly went over to the shop owner. He was a rough-looking dwarf with the usual long red beard.

“I’d like to sell some items.”

“Aye, Whit do ye have laddie?”

After the quick exchange, Roland started to pull out some of the crude bandit armors. Most of them were leather ones but they had some metallic parts like chain shirts, graves, and pauldrons. He didn’t think he would be getting much for them but he wasn’t worried about that as any small amount of gold would help.

“Let me see… Ah, kin give ye aboot this much…”

The dwarf went through everything and examined it throughout. He could see the man taking some notes, he was quite professional about it.

“That’s a bit… can’t you go higher? How about …”