A crack in the ravine
A crack in the ravine
"No, my work is over," the halfling replied immediately with deep frustration in his voice, "Can't you tell just by looking?"
The old man raised a brow and turned his head, still unsure what exactly the halfling was speaking of. And then, he could see it. The statue was of a young woman, a beauty like no other. Practically, it was exactly like what one would expect to see when imagining a 'muse'. And right there, on the statue's arm, was a small mistake. The tiniest speck of unevenness, as if the halfling had removed too much from the slab of rock. But even seeing what exactly it was that the halfling was worrying about, Eisen wasn't sure 'why' he was worrying about this.
"What an interesting town. Everyone was so excited to watch a novice at work, huh?" The old man chuckled as he shook his head, not able to hold himself back in this moment. Enraged at Eisen's words, the halfling glared at him with fury in his eyes, "Novice?! I'll let you know, I'm the best damned sculptor this world has ever seen!"
"Don't be too loud, or Evalia's gonna hear ya."
"Evalia? Hah, you're one of those? The kind that truly believes that those five are gods amongst men?" the halfling asked, maybe even angrier than he was before. A bit surprised, Eisen crossed his arms, "What, and you think you know better? Someone who gives up after a slight hickup?"
"Slight hick- Old man, watch your mouth. You can't even imagine the realm that I am working in. I am trying to create a Rank 8 statue here. Do you have the slightest idea what that even means?"
"That you're maybe a third of the way there to being allowed to sharpen Evalia's chisel?"
The halfling tightened his grip on his chisel, taking a step toward Eisen. The old man was afraid he was about to feel the halfling's horns in his throat if he wasn't careful, "Get the hell out of here! Just as I thought, you're here to make fun of me, nothing else!"
Eisen sighed as he looked at the man in front of him, "Youngster, even the gods of love and beauty have scars. They have lived long lives filled with stories that most can never even imagine, and their bodies hold the proof. You are trying to create something real, the most beautiful thing that has ever lived, but you aren't even allowing her to have a life on her own," he pointed out, looking at the sculptor standing in front of him. Maybe Eisen was getting a bit ahead of himself, and he was most certainly sounding incredibly cocky from others' points of view, but he simply felt like this was something he should try to do at least.
However, instead of growing even more mad, the halfling stared at his statue with a blank stare. Relieved that he was the sort of person Eisen thought he was, he continued, "A friend of mine once told me that art has already been here long before us, and the artist is simply there to allow us to see it. Frankly, I believe she was going through something like a mid-life crisis because she just hit the two thousand year mark, but they're words to consider at least, don't you think?"
"Words to consider? That's taking it lightly, old man," the halfling replied, slowly taking another step toward his statue. Slowly, he placed his hand over the statue's heart, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. To Eisen, it seemed like the halfling needed a little bit of time to think, so he figured he might as well go take a look around elsewhere and check back in later, to see if anything worthwhile happened. Because it was more than clear that this man was anything but a novice, even if Eisen said it to rile him up. The way that he moved his hands could only mean that he was incredibly skilled, a master of his craft. And from what Eisen knew, if people like that made this sort of expression, things usually turned out pretty interesting.
The old man turned around and continued to walk down the street. He walked past a pub where plenty of giants were gathered, drinking enough wine to drown a capital in the central continent. Looking at them, Eisen held his hand to his chin curiously. This might be the perfect place to do something he hadn't managed to pursue for quite a while. Giants, even the most sophisticated kind, still would never be able to resist alcohol.
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[Quest – Gordon's Work]
[Description] Gordon Antrey is known for creating extraordinary variants of alcohol with all kinds of effects. Since he isn't able to leave town due to personal reasons, he instead asked you to spread his work around the world during your travels.
Simply create different liquors out of the book 'Perfect Booze' filled with Gordon's recipes and give or sell them to different people you meet.
[Reward] Recipe Book 'Perfect Booze'; Extra reward according to how far you go to fullfill this quest
[Failure] You have to give the book back to Gordon and he will never help you in any way again
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At this point in time, there most likely wasn't all too much merit in completing this quest. He had already memorized all the recipes in the book, but he still felt bad simply taking this away from that man and not completing the request, especially after he promised it to him.
Certainly, Gordon's recipes were amazing and novel, even from Eisen's point of view, so it wouldn't be an issue to find people that would like to have a taste. On the other hand, Eisen didn't know how to best spread this alcohol.
He could probably set up a few distilleries or plantations so that they could prepare as much of this alcohol as they needed so that they could sell the alcohol in large quantities, but most of Gordon's recipes were too complex to make this particularly viable, on top of ohter things. So, Eisen figured that the best way to go about this was to simply make the names of Gordon's creations known throughout the whole world. Eisen and Gordon hadn't interacted much, but from what he could tell, he was the sort that would much rather have his creations be the target of collectors, something that people travelled to get their hands on, rather than have it be a common name that everyone knew.
Luckily, Eisen did have everything he needed with him to quick-ferment a few things. Now, he only had to figure out a good way to quickly spread the word through this city as well as others that he was still going to visit during this trip. And if Eisen knew giants well, then he had the perfect way to do this in mind already.
The old man approached one of the ravine's walls and slightly hopped up, returning back to his regular size as he did so. He slowed himself down with his wings, and soon landed safely on a platform at the scale that the regular-sized people in this city lived at. Of course, he got a few confused stares, since it was incredibly rare for a giant to shrink themselves down to interact with them, but soon enough they didn't pay him any further mind. The old man walked through this enormous city hidden in this small town of giants, until he reached an area where relatively little people seemed to be. It was a crack in the ravine's walls that had become home to a few more shops, mostly small workshops for apprentices, it seemed. At least, those were the only types of people that Eisen saw while walking through it.
He looked around until he found a suitable place, and then looked at a young woman taking a break nearby, "If I understand correctly, anyone can just take whatever space they require, right?"
Surprised that Eisen was talking to her, the young woman slowly nodded her head, "Erm, I guess so. As long as you don't bother anyone, just take whatever space you need. Not like there's any lack of that around here. If you need some help carving it out, there's always a Geomancer walking around on the main street over there," she explained, and Eisen simply smiled as he shook his head. He summoned his storage space in the wall in front of him, only opening up a small area that he soon pushed his hand through so that he could pull out a particular item that he prepared for situations like this.
It was a key with a sharp, pointed tip, making it nearly look like a nail. This nail-like key was an expandable structure, just like Eisen's main workshop. Just that this was specifically for cases where Eisen wanted to set things up in this sort of environment and only had something small to work on, also while not being able to make use of the dungeon for whatever reason. Basically, this was one of the few chances that Eisen had to actually use this.
Somewhat excitedly, Eisen pressed the tip of the key onto the wall in front of him and pressed it in as if the wall was made of butter.
Eisen's mana flowed into the cube and he watched it slowly expand. First, as with all the portable buildings, the door was the first to come to be. And from there came the front wall. It was mostly quite open, with most of the front wall just being glass-less windows, so Eisen could patiently watch the process of his temporary workshop coming to be. And he wasn't the only one that was watching this happen. The young woman that Eisen asked about this place earlier stood there, watching what was happening in front of her in awe, while others that were noticing something was going on quickly joined her. They watched the wall of solid rock simply make way as the structure inside of it continued to expand and grow.
Soon, Eisen twisted the key that was now safely sitting inside of the door's lock and properly pulled it out, before stepping into this workshop. The magic-stone lanterns hanging on the walls quickly lit up and illuminated the room as the old man got out everything else that he needed to get started working on Gordon's alcohol, while a crowd formed around the workshop that suddenly appeared in a crack in the ravine that split a mountain.