Quantum Leap - Vol. 9 Robyn Hode Takes On The World

C019 Walls Of Jericho Are Crashing Down...!!!

I opened the sliding door and found that the sapphire shards were not in their slots anymore and had disintegrated. "Opppsss...! I think my skill is not up to that level yet. Better hang on to these before it totalled failed me. This is sapphires, I haven't even try diamonds that would be the hardest gem to fuse...! I think I better stop now."

I said aloud to myself as I logged off my meditative state and returned to the real world. When Matilda saw my forlorn look on my face, she was anxious and asked me what happened.

"I've obliterated 5 pieces of sapphire on my first experiment. I had successfully fused poor quality rubies and emeralds but when I tried on sapphire, it turned to dust...! Here, safeguard these."

"I would make some more when I got the rubies and emeralds. I guess I would be able to try on the sapphires after a month of continuous fusings of rubies and emeralds. Its a waste to test on them in the earlier part of this fusion technique."

"Come, let's assemble the shelter together. I would like to fish after this and discover what kind of fishes thrive in this stream." I said as I handed her the 4 pouches and she took out a gem and saw its dull radiance when held against a light source.

"What's the attributes like for this type of gems?" Matilda asked while we both laid the tarpaulin on the ground and then used the twines and pegs to secure part of it to the ground. The 2 poles were attached together to make a single long pole about 4 feet in height and we supported it through the eyelet before we pulled the other part to act as a cover overhead.

"Gems add attributes like attack, defence, hit points, damage et cetera in multipliers of 2. A poor gem can add 10 points, a fair gem up to 20 points, a good gem up to 40 points and perfect gem up to 80 points. If we have a normal weapon with 3 sockets, and we used 3 perfect gems, it would give an added 240 points over attack."

"So far rubies would be used for defence, emeralds are for attack. Diamonds would be used to enhance hit points while sapphires would be for damage."

"If sapphires were used on a weapon, it would increase the damage inflicted and if used in armour, it would be for damage absorbed. So far I had successfully fused the 1st stage which is shards to poor. I haven't tried the poor to fair yet."

"To minimise the harm, its best for me to fuse all into poor ones and once I'm confident on making fair ones right till good ones, until then would I act on the sapphires and then diamond."

"There are so many levels to clear and I almost forget about it. However, if I failed to fuse, let's say a good gem... Then it would be obliterated and turned into nothing. That's the risk of a gem crafter."

"It's best to keep all the shards first and concentrate on fusing other materials like stone flooring slabs, for instance. If you really wanted to make 24x24 floor space, then I would need 576 pieces of stone flooring slabs which also means a total number of 2880 pieces of stones."

"Based on your storage bag, you need to collect 2 trips of those 99 items every 15 slots. We could grind mining those stone mines first and once we had achieved that, you could slowly grind the iron ones and leave the stones for me to fuse."

"Haiyooo... Why so cheem? Is there a faster way to do all this or not?" she exasperatedly cried out when she learned that we need to collect 2880 stones just to make a sizeable floor space. She dived under the shelter when she heard that a joint effort would need to collect all those stones.

"Ngeeeekkkk... This is 1160 Medieval Higher Middle Ages in England... This is not 1860 Japan where things would be much easier for us. Look around you... Do you see any people except the offscreen crews?"

"Phew... If we have other adventurers around, we could rope them in and get them to assist in gathering resources. Or we could buy off their loads of stones and wood."

.....

Meanwhile... A male adventurer aged about 12-13 had just reached Ackworth and was watching around to acquire some equipment when he observed that those merchants were simply cutthroats, and all he had in his holding was just a few coppers or pennies.

He wandered off to the marketplace and disbursed all his money on tomatoes instead. "At least it is better to fill my stomach rather than to give my hard-earned money to these land pirates...!

=*=

"This place is so God damned crappy...!! No wonder there are no adventurers here and most of them are in bigger cities like Leeds, Wakefield or Barnsley and all those cities listed in the English Premier Leagues. Oh, woe is me who had chosen these smaller villages to roam...!"

"The prices define by the merchants are so f*****g astronomical expensive...! This is a small inconspicuous little village and yet the prices set are as high as those set in Leeds...! I guessed I could do better in smaller unknown villages and I guessed wrong...! They all are f*****g same...! Huarrrgghhh.....!"

"If I knew my fate would turn out like this, I wouldn't have left my town in Port Isaac 3 months ago from being a squider on my own roundabout boat to become a freaking laughing stock of an adventurer."

"You got friends all around you when your merrymaking, but once you're down and out, no one wants to claim you to be a friend of yours. Curse that f*****g Gambit for all eternal damnation...! A so-called friend indeed...Baaaahhh...!"

I sucked in my throat, hocked up thick phlegm and spat on the dusty ground. "Shit...! My whole life is s**t down the drain now...! I'm as worthless as this pile of s**t at the side of this path...!" I sucked in, hocked another thick yellowish phlegm and spat once more on the ground.

"HEY...! Watch it fella...once more and you're in the book for displaying unhygienic practices in public...! I've already got one in my book today for someone who picks his nose and sucks on his booger...! He said it was tasty and everyone was squirming in disgust...! You're gonna be it if you do it once more...!"

A man in a white short sleeve double breasted pocket shirt and blue bermudas and leather moccasins was swinging his truncheon with his blue health officer's hat set askew on his head was mocking me with his toothless grin and literally screaming down my ear. Yes...! He was just beside my ears when he screamed down those words...! Does he think I'm f*****g deaf or something?

"Ay...quit shouting on me ye hear me matey? Or me gonna shove this quarter stave up ye shithole...so ye better get the f**k out of me face...!!!" I looked down on the small man and craned my neck towards him as I shouted back and covered his face with my spittle as I get to hock my phlegm down his face.

He quickly scampered off and squeezed through the crowd and disappeared. "f*****g retard...! I'm already down in the pits and yet dares to antagonise me...Fucking sow...!" I shouted at his back while I too walked away and heads to a place where there's no one to listen to me pour out my woes and sorrow.

I picked a tomato from my storage bag and began to more into it. The thick skin was crunchy and the moist insides were welcoming. It's a fruit and a vegetable. You get the goodness of both worlds in one bite. I trudged on, dragging my dreary feet and choose a shade from a tree and sat down.

"Ahhh...this is the life of being such a useless and bent fellow. No one looks at you and no one gives a hoot about you. I'd better take this time to sleep off and reserve my energy. How I wish I'm back home now and enjoys pulling in the lines and every treble hook has a squid on it as I filled up buckets after buckets filled with them."

"The sun, the wind and the surf hitting the sides of my boat as I reel in my catch. When night time falls, I'd turn those squid into bait and reel in the prized yellowfin tuna...yeah...that was the time of my life. Not like this..."

I sucked on the tomato where the part I had bitten and the sweet, sour and a bit tangy juices dribbled down my throat as it quenches my thirst and staves off my grumbling, hungry stomach. There were times when there was simply nothing to eat while during the adventure and only depended on natural resources for food.

There were all sorts of fruits, grains, roots and vegetables in Chulmleigh and each yield would provide 2-3 reaps every time it was sown. There were wild pigs and boars to grind and each animal would provide spoils like meat, bones and hides. The bones could be crafted into parts of weapons while the hide could be crafted as pieces of clothing or armour. But now since moving closer to villages or populated places provides almost nothing and with just a wooden quarterstaff, one look at me would be rejected or ignored totally by other adventurers.

"You guys might be thinking of how the hell I ended up having a quarterstaff as my main weapon instead of a sword, an axe, a mace or even a halberd right? I had chosen this quarterstaff as my favoured weapon because of so many reasons that even a dagger would not surpass it."

"As a squider on a roundabout boat, we are used to utilizing this long pole to shove and manoeuvre our boats through shallow waters and channels instead of depending on the single sail on it. Using the pole is also a form of docking the roundabout boat if we need to be still to fish and stay still in certain coral areas."

"Similarly, the long pole would also perform as a defensive weapon against other squider boats that tries to enter the territory and disrupt your squidding jigs. We could joust other boats away or even use it to whack the operators head. Hohohohoho..."

"This quarterstaff not only serves as a weapon but also can be used as a drying pole to hang your wet clothes."

"It could be used also as a flag that to signal to others and to hang several signal flags indicate your intentions. It also can be used to mark your hearth and telling others that it's occupied."

"If you have a battle flag, you could proudly flutter it in the air and shout in unison the war-cry before every battle."

"If you have two quarterstaffs you could fashion a stretcher by using a shirt to ferry the injured. With this quarterstaff, you could pitch a tent, use it as a fishing pole or a spear if you attached a sharpened tip."

"In the case of a long journey like this, you could use it as a hiking stick as well."

"Ah...Haaaaaa...this quarterstaff may look nothing at all to you but it definitely serves so many purposes in life. Why don't you search on Youtube on life hacks using a quarterstaff? Surely you would want to own this quarterstaff for your everyday uses. Hohohoho..."

"Ah well...since I decided to rest, might as well I show you an example of the usage of this quarterstaff."

I tilted the quarterstaff in front me slightly and against the tree trunk that I was leaning against, wrapped and dangle one leg around it and fell into a perfect position to doze off while reserving my energy. As the sun sets, the air around was extensively cooler and felt a sense of gratefulness to the shade and the bountiful quantity of oxygen from the trees.