RP:How to Give a Jeweler a Nightmare

Summary: Linn stops by a jewelry store in Xalious with a set of strange and specific tasks he needs done. The dwarf entrepreneur does her best to help him, but she's not a miracle worker, and his precious ring project is left by the wayside.

NPCing done by Pilar

Xalious Village

Tucked away in a corner near the Mage's Tower is a little jewelry shop, owned by an enterprising dwarf named Aaralyn. It was a busy spring day for Jasper Street Jewelers, with a young couple placing an order for an engagement ring, an older halfling having a brooch made for his wife, and a rich woman perusing the necklaces. Aaralyn hopped about from customer to customer, micro-managing her poor employees.

Linn maybe put a little bit more thought into the topic of contingency plans than Hildegarde may have expected. Between that, and what he was realizing he was going to need for his new ring he had quite the log of projects and designs building up. Well, it was time to dump these projects on someone who could hopefully manage some of the odd settings he’d need. He’d already struck out twice in the bigger, fancier cities, but who knows, maybe Xalious with all of its oddities might just be able to do it. In his usual bright armor and pack he walked into the shop, keenly analyzing the work on display for a little bit before (If he isn’t addressed yet) approaching the counter, notebook in hand. The old thing still had some use after all for these intricate images and… color.

"Be right with you," the halfling behind the counter said automatically. She was still writing down the details of someone's order. "And... crud. Hey Aaralyn, did they want chrysolite or peridot for that bracelet?" "They're the same thing!" the dwarf called back. With a sigh, she left her station to oversee the halfling's work, and spotted Linn. "Oh, welcome sir! How can I help you?" She was all smiles now. "How do you spell 'baguette cut'?" the halfling asked. The smile became a little more strained.

Linn seemed mildly amused with the banter as he waited, unable to help but wonder just what kind of wrench his request was going to throw into the works. As Aaralyn approached he nodded before putting his notebook up on the counter. “I have a few gems that I’m going to need set.” Hehe… ‘few’ was an understatement. Opening up the small leather-bound book he flipped maybe three-quarters of the way through to the various parts he was referring to. On the pages was a spiraled ring very similar to the one he wore on his right hand, the wires that made it up flecked with a number of spots that ranged in color from coal-black all the way up to a fiery gold. Scaling it all down to a real size meant the gems were going to be quite tiny. “These, I’m looking for fire-opal to set in it.” Next he motioned to the numerous images that corresponded to the plates on his armor, pointing out the gems that were set on the pointed ends, lining the ends of his boots, and even right along the forearms under a sliver of metal that formed the top ridge of each plate. “These will be sapphire among other things. I could handle cutting the gems themselves if I need to, though setting them is something I don’t have the tools to do.” Possibly evident from the way he drew the images was that all of the settings were meant not to protrude from the metal at all in either case, and the particular design lacked the delicate wiring meant to be bent around the gems to hold them in; they were instead set deeply in, using the bulk of the metal as a way to secure them. The cuts of the gems themselves were also clearly unconventional and show significant room for cosmetic improvement, at least for those set in the armor.

Aaralyn looked over the designs and her inner artist was screaming, both in joy and in horror. With a few tweaks, the armor and ring would be GORGEOUS. On the other hand, those fire-opals were going to be TINY. She didn't even know if she could get them that small, never mind setting them. But the sapphires... "I see. This armor, it looks like what you're wearing now. How soon will you need it back?" Deftly avoiding the topic of that troublesome ring. "I warn you, such a large project could take some time. What's that armor made of, steel?" It was very bright for steel... Maybe it was ornamental and made of silver? Ornamental made more sense if he was having gems put in it.

Linn was really more immediately worried about the armor than anything, which was likely going to be an easier thing to work with given that there was a lot of metal and space to be worked with. Lucky Aaralyn. When asked about how soon he’ll need it back he swished his mouth to the side for a second. “Soon as possible really. Ideally a few days, maybe a week. I’ll need to do a bit of my own work on it afterwards.” Asked about the material he nodded. “Mithril. If you can work with it that should help hold everything in, but it is very important that the gems can’t be knocked loose.” That should explain the deeply-set design, though the reasons for that requirement may not be entirely known yet considering most of his time in Xalious was spent being a hero rather than an enchanter.

Everyone in the shop turned and stared at Linn. The color drained from Aaralyn's face. "M-Mithril?!" she squeaked. "A week?!" That, she was not expecting. She cleared her throat. Okay, calm down girl, you got this. Maybe? "Okay. Um... We don't have the tools to work with mithril here in the shop... But I know someone in Craughmoyle who could do it. As for the time frame..." She chewed her lip. She had a number of orders ahead of him. Could she really get it all done? "We... um..." She glanced at her employees. They were all shaking their heads no. "It'll... It'll cost you a little extra, but you'll be made our top priority." Anything to please a customer. "Now, you mentioned cutting the gems yourself. Is that for the ring, too? Is the ring already made? Does this also need to be done quickly?" Behind her, a halfling headdesked. Why, Aaralyn, whyyyy.

Linn pursed his lips slightly and nodded. “If you have to move it to Croughmoyle I understand if it takes a bit longer. I just need some time with it before I’m headed back to Frostmaw. That gives you longer, but…” a shrug, “Sooner is better. Though that’s a given.” He didn’t seem to have too many problems with another delay, so long as he didn’t wind up dead for it. At least he had something that could substitute in the meantime. “The ring isn’t as urgent. It’s been an ongoing project. Though…” a weak grin, “That’s also going to be mithril like this one.” Putting his hand on the table he thumbed the ring which had a bit more bulk to the spiral than a normal band would. “The crazy designs are rather… important to what I’m looking to do, so the most I can do is see if I can help carry them out.”

While the halfling continued giving himself brain damage, Aaralyn stared at the ring. Intriguing, she'd never seen anything like it. "I... I don't know if my guy can set stones that small..." she admitted. One of her employees stared at her like she'd grown a second head. Aaralyn, turning down a project? This was a surer sign of the apocalypse than all that crazy black magic that had been happening around here. Aaralyn continued, "There might be someone in Rynvale who can help you with that. They do all sorts of specialized stuff over there." Saying so looked like it physically pained her. "But we can get on your armor right away." Back to what she COULD do. Think of the money, honey.

Strike three on the ring project. Linn offered a slight nod. “Yeah, it’s… a difficult one.” He managed to suppress some kind of disappointed amusement at the general surprise that it was turned down –again-; the project was truly absurd to work with all things considered. Then again they didn’t know that. When Rynvale was mentioned his lips pursed. “Long way off. I’ll have to see about it though.” Too far given everything he needed to do back at home. A trip to Rynvale would take far too long simply because of the logistics of the boat trip. As the armor was mentioned again he nodded before flipping another page in the notebook to a set of images that detailed another number of settings under the plates along with the relevant information. It was going to take… a lot of sapphire. “Sounds good. I understand if this takes a while, and if you need me to supply you with the gems I can. What I have should be enough to cover the material requirements for all of this.”

Aaralyn gave him a quizzical look. How did he have access to gems but not gem setting equipment? Was he a miner? He certainly didn't look it. "Alright, so, we'll just have to charge you for the labor..." She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and quickly did the math. "Alright, so shipping it out to Craughmoyle, paying him, shipping it back, setting the sapphires... It'll come out to roughly 43681 gold, 28873 silver, and 3 copper."

Linn began racking up the labor costs in his own head as well as they were listed off. He didn’t have the best idea of just how much each step costed, though he twitched slightly at the calculated price of the whole thing. No way he had that much –gold- on him… He did happen to have plenty of other valuables though… “I don’t necessarily have the gold to pay that, but I might be able to handle that value with a few other things.” A beat, “It’s pretty important that I get this done, so I’d be willing to do something else to make up some of the cost. Raw material, or maybe, if I could figure it out, I might be able to make a tool that could let you work on the scales I’m looking for.” Making the tools himself wasn’t an idea that had entered his mind before, but with the recent acquisition of some things much more valuable than anything in this room and just being frustrated with them seeming not to exist, it was an interesting idea to chase.

Aaralyn raised an eyebrow. "What KIND of raw materials? Like gems?" She thought about it. "Hmm... Yes, a few gems would do nicely." Certainly would save her some time and cash. "How much gold can you spare?"

Linn surely nodded when Aaralyn questioned him on the materials he was offering. “More or less.” When asked about gold he put a pouch up onto the counter, “Should be worth a couple thousand. As far as the raw materials go though… how much would these be worth?” Setting his pack down he opened up the flap before pulling out a few slabs of the raw gemstone that they were talking about. The surface was still rather rough after cleaning off the impurities, though the alchemical fire used in its processing rendered the white sapphire very clear. It looked like a few small panes of rough glass a bit over a quarter-inch thick, but after a bit of testing it was clearly the hard and heavy sapphire that the enchanter was looking to put into his armor.

Aaralyn stared at the slabs of money he'd just deposited on her counter. She quickly grabbed her magnifying glass and inspected them. "By the gods... Where did you find these?!" She hefted one up and onto her scale, which subsequently broke. "... I won't charge you for that." She quickly did some more math. "Hmm... Well, they're worth about... 32492 gold, total." She checked the bag of gold and counted out what he had. "Hmm... converting the silver into gold... You still owe 7 gold, 3 silver, and 3 copper... But you look like you'd be good for it. You sure you want to pay it all off now?"

Linn couldn’t help a grin at Aaralyn’s surprise. “I work in a business that can go very strange places. I found this in one of them.” He’d stay purposely cryptic on the subject; maybe he could milk the fact that this stuff was sourced from what was essentially well-selected rocks and a lot of work. When the remaining payment came up he sighed. He –could- pull another chunk to finish it right now, but that might just imply that he got it very cheaply. Best to keep that under the rug for now… “Well, that’s just about all I have right now. I’ll get back to you with that last bit though soon as I can.” With all the details sorted out that just left… actually getting started! “Anyone I should give the plates that are going to be worked on? That stuff” a tap on one of the glassy plates of gemstone, “should work just fine for what needs to be done as well.”

"You can leave them here. We'll take care of shipping 'em out and getting 'em back," Aaralyn said. "As for setting the stones... think you could leave those sketches, for reference?" She gestured to one of her workers, another dwarf, and had him haul the slabs into the back. "I'll see to it that it's done in a week, sir."

Linn nodded at the need for the rest of the sketches, “Yeah.” With that he carefully tore the pages from the book to let them remain on the counter. Doubly lucky he did it in the book. “So just the plates now…” He began lifting them right off of his armor and stacking them up for transport, exposing some more of those white sapphires he rooted his enchantments in both on the plates and on the doublet underneath. “That should be everything. Good luck with all of it.” With that he picked up his pack and turned to leave, returning the next day to finish that last bit of payment.