Tom sat at the workbench working on his newest pair of leather gloves. His first few pairs had not turned out well; he could barely fit his fingers into them. Now he was improving the fit and learning to make different sizes. The leather caps, chest pieces, leggings, and boots were easier for him because they were less detailed. At this point, he wondered if fingerless gloves might be easier.
He had already mastered the arm guards and shin guards and even made some neck guards. He was now working to level the Leatherworker class he had recently received. He brought up his class progression to check his progress.
[Leatherworker — Novice Rank]
Rank Advancement Requirements:
Craft 25 leather items (18 / 25)Create 5 fitted armor pieces (3 / 5)Successfully work uncommon materials (0 / 1)Supply crafted goods through settlement tradeImprove material efficiencyPotential Advancement: Apprentice Leatherworker◈ ◈ ◈
He was making good progress on the first two requirements but needed to figure out the best way to accomplish more. He had added a few of his leather items to their settlement shop, but to complete the supply crafted goods option, he had to actually sell some goods through the trade system. His problem was that the people who needed his goods were not yet doing tasks in Forest’s Rest.
So he decided he would take his goods up to the cave, show them off, and then see if he could get some of the guys at the cave interested in using the settlement trade and help him get this requirement checked off.
Tom went through the pile of items he had made over the past few weeks. Some were better than others, and most had been made before he received his class. The class was a game changer for precision, and he wasted less material now. He finally decided to take the three best examples of each item, then headed to Cave Camp.
On his way to the cave, he was impressed that the trail had been improved above the rough trail Mark had done the first time. There were more markers, and the path had all the branches and shrubs trimmed back so they could pull a cart down it with no issues.
As he walked, he went through ideas on how to sell or pitch his goods. He finally decided that he was going to make the system show these cave junkies how valuable trade was in the system.
At Cave Camp, Tom approached the largest group around the fire and introduced himself as a leatherworker with equipment they might want. He then pulled out a chest piece, leggings, boots, a belt, and gloves and let the people examine them.
They were suitably impressed, and most had no serious gear and wanted his stuff. Several of them pulled out items and tried to outbid each other for the chest piece. After they tried haggling for a few minutes, he finally got them to stop.
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He explained the outpost system shop, including the one at Cave Camp and another at Forest’s Rest. All they wanted to know was the price and how to pay for it. So as a group, he went over to the outpost storage area, opened his interface, and added all of the leather items he brought to the system shop.
Someone mentioned they distrusted the system pricing, and Tom pointed out that the same system gave them experience and loot already, and if they trusted that, they could trust the system shop.
He walked them through registering with the outpost and showed them how to open the goods available for trade and compare their costs. None of them had system credits, so he demonstrated how they could add their own items to the system shop. If the settlement wanted an item, the system would accept it and give them credit.
He also showed them how settlement tasks could earn credits while helping the outpost. Tom filtered the shop for leather and other crafting materials, buying until he ran out of credits. The group watched him collect the goods before he waved and headed back to Forest’s Rest.
As he walked away, he heard one of the guys telling another one that he had just picked up two tasks that would take him roughly a day to complete and give him enough to buy the boots he wanted, with a bit left toward his next item.
The other guy responded that he had just bought a water flask after trading in some of the salt he had gathered to get the credits he needed. Another said, “Hauling logs pays that much? I’m doing that, and I’m going to earn enough before the rest of you rockheads buy up that chest piece I want.”
About halfway back, he got a system message that let him know someone had purchased his chest piece and a pair of gloves and that his class requirement was now complete. He was glad for that and hoped that word would spread about his leather goods so that he could continue to make items and get new goods.
One of the things Tom noticed was the difference in contribution points for each item. The items he had most recently created that were better quality, better stitched, and from better materials were almost double the contribution value of the older, lower-quality items he had made.
When Tom returned to Forest’s Rest, he was surprised by all the changes. A group of workers was cutting trees and nearly doubling the camp’s open space. Stakes with strings stretched between them marked building borders. Others were digging the foundation for the new longhouse, with stones stacked nearby for the footings.
Some logs were split into boards while others became the longhouse’s main beams. Two workers were even digging a well so the outpost would no longer depend on constant trips to the stream. It had been only yesterday when Mark had agreed to rebuild the camp in preparation for its growth with the incoming crowds that wanted to experience the cave.
Tom finally went back to his crafting bench. As he looked at it and the people around him, he really looked forward to when the crafting workshop would be completed; more room and better tools were planned. Drying racks, scraping racks, and other tools specific to his crafting profession had been promised as part of the deal.
Just before he went back to work, he noticed one of the murder pigs was biting on Dale’s foot, and he kept kicking it away. That thing loved him, and Dale kept saying how much he hated the murder pigs, but he never seemed to make Ava put it back in the pen; he just swished it out of his way and kept cooking.