Evan cried until he was emotionally numb. He started his day by accidently sleeping in, leaving him late for work. His workload was absurd and he wasn’t able to go home until his company’s servers went offline for the evening, forcing him to end his day with work left to do. He stopped at a bar to get something to eat while hanging out with some friends when he just wanted to go home and sleep. Then he was torn from his friends by some rogue magic spell, torn from a world where magic is the stuff of fantasy. He was processed through some absurd cross between limbo and an immigration control office only to be dumped here. Where he was greeted by a gorgeous naked warrior woman.
Evan only moved because he was hungry and there was a delicious aroma in the air. He stood up and walked to the small dwelling where the red haired woman was seated at a low table eating meal. She was clothed now. She wore a simple outfit that, judging by the discarded armor laying beside her, was intended to be worn under the same armor. If Evan were still on earth he would have said she looked like she had stayed the night at her boyfriend's house and borrowed one of his T-shirts. Her pants were discarded in favor of walking around in a loincloth.
She must have decided to trust him, to some extent, because she smiled shyly at him. “Hello miss. I’m Evan. How do you do?”
Her smile deepened. “I am Iris. I would say I am doing well, though this has been an exciting morning.
Iris flinched internally at her choice of words. Talking was outside the range of her expertise and she was feeling nervous. She hadn’t wanted to imply she liked being on display for him. She also didn’t want to think about the fact that she did like it. It felt good to be wanted for once, wanted by someone she could imagine wanting back…. The warrior part of her mind tried to remind her that she was just starved for positive attention from men, she hadn’t felt any since her master had died five years before. Her inner maiden quipped that the man, Evan he called himself, didn’t know that. She didn’t want to seem like some street girl.
“Go ahead and eat, I made extra. I was originally going into town to get my gear repaired and to buy more supplies, food and the like, but now? I don’t feel up to it.”
Evan only half listened to her as he began eating the boxed lunch she had made. It wasn’t anything special. There were a couple sausages, a simple salad of wild greens and something that resembled a baked potato.
“Just getting my gear repaired by the alchemist takes up a good hour of my time. Not to mention the time it takes me to get something resembling a fair price for anything I buy or sell.”
“Sorry, alchemy?”
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Iris considered Evan’s remark for a moment. “Once a blacksmith has made a tool or weapon it begins to accumulate mana while it is in use. An alchemist can use the Mana to repair or upgrade the item. Something like this is considered common knowledge. Where are you from?”
Evan explained as best he could. When he was done Iris nodded and began to think.
Iris was sure that what Evan was talking about was impossible but then she would have said having a man appear out of thin air because of a hyper advanced spell with noone around to cast it was impossible and that had happened before her eyes. She was curious about this strange man and his strange clothes. He had told her that he had the alchemy Skill. If he was telling the truth then he would be convenient to have around. Part of her mind added that she would also be happy to have his company. Another part tried to add that she would be happy to have any positive company.
While Iris was trying to decide how to deal with Evan, he took a look at her sword. He used [analyze] on it. The weapon had 200 Mana accumulated. It was close to breaking, the screen showed 5/2000. The weapon had a trait attached to it called sharpness which his Skill labeled Sharpness 10 and another called Obscure.
Curious what would happen Evan used one point of the Mana to restore the blades durability. The new value showed 105/2001. Satisfied with his result he used another nineteen Mana to repair the blade. The new result showed 2005/2020, 180 Mana, Sharpness 10. Obscure had disappeared.
“Hey Iris. I was looking at your sword, what did that obscure trait do, I kind of got rid of it by accident.”
Iris looked at him then at the sword. “I’ve never heard of such a trait. The sword should have had 30 Mana 5/200 durability and the trait Sharpness at grade ten 10. Let me see it.”
“Here you go. I repaired it while I was at it.”
“I can only see the durability and Mana. was the Sharpness trait there?” Evan nodded. “That cheating bastard. Well. I knew my master had never needed to get the sword repaired as often as I did. Thank you. Can you upgrade the trait?”
She passed the sword back to Evan. “Yeah. It looks like each grade costs the previous grade times ten. So Grade 11 costs 100 while 12 costs 110. It could change after that, seeing as I could only upgrade it to grade 11.”
Iris frowned. “I was told it would take 10 times that.”
Evan shrugged. “That void guy I spoke to said something about absurdly high Mana efficiency.”
The pair ended up talking the rest of the day. Evan gradually became acquainted with his new world while Iris was fascinated by the egalitarian ideals of Evan’s United States. When night fell and Iris went in to set up her futon for the evening she found herself wondering how Evan would behave himself at night. She found that she was a little disappointed when she found him sleeping at the table when she came to get him. Iris picked him up, set him on her futon and covered him up. She fell asleep watching him.
