Spending My Retirement In A Game Chapter 437 - The Changeling

The first thing that Eisen did to properly work on his stall was create the actual base for it. Since it wouldn't be that big, it could be brought out in one piece now that Fafnir evolved, so he luckily could construct it here and pop it down wherever he could.
For the base, the old man figured it wouldn't necessarily be all that important to choose any special material, although he did try and choose one that was pretty hard, and ended up choosing regular oak. In the end, the base stall wasn't anything special, it was simply a table in a 'U' shape, where the open side would be placed directly up to the Carriage, with some wooden boards around the outside and a 'ring' along the top of the stall where Eisen could hang a few items from.
And then started to work on actually turning this into a high-tier stall. First, what Eisen needed was something like a cash-register, for which he grabbed one of the crystals that he enchanted with Komer's element while he had the chance to, and then quickly turned it into a round disc, with a small crystal at the front that would control everything.
The disc itself was enchanted to properly produce the effect of either splitting the coins up or pulling them togehter, while the small regular crystal at the front was enchanted to give Eisen a proper 'interface' to let him choose what exactly would happen, meaning that he could quite easily choose how many of which type of coin should be 'handed out' to him, or whether coins that were placed on top of the disc would be combined with the coin placed into the small slot underneath the disc, which Eisen made out of some wood to make it slightly less conspicuous.
In the end, it was just slightly larger than a coin was, so it could be easily held in one's hand. After this neat item was done, Eisen tested it out by placing a copper coin into the slot and combining it with a few coins of different kinds before giving a few coins back out. It seemed like everything worked quite well, so Eisen carved a small round spot into a part of the inside of the stall and placed it inside of it by basically just 'screwing' it inside so that it could be taken out relatively easily as well.
Then, Eisen grabbed some of the barrels that were supposed to be made using spatial gems and placed and fastened them into the right side of the stall. These were the smaller variant, outwardly seeming to just be able to hold maybe 6 or 7 liters, although in really it was more like ten times that. And these would then later be filled as much as possible with different basic potions.
Eisen also had some more special potions to sell, but he wanted to openly display those in specially-made glass jugs. They looked quite nice and were pretty colorful, so they were a great way to attract some people to the stall as well.
Otherwise, Eisen just made a bunch of different displays for some of the more 'special', or rather over-the-top, items, made a bunch of disposable items like arrows and bundled them up in packs of five, ten, or twenty and prepared the proper place to set them down as well.
Then there were the simply regularly useful items for beginners to have like lighters, made using flame enchantments, self-filling cups, as well as places made for items like staffs and wands.
Eisen hung a few of the larger pieces at the top of the stall around the small sign that just had Eisen's hammer-symbol on it, as well as a small sign that said 'Affiliated with Starlight'.
Otherwise, Eisen just equipped the inside of the stall with a few things like simple spatial-containers to hold different crafting materials or smaller items that Eisen made in bulk, and then he was basically done with his preparation.
The only thing he had to do then was make a bunch of regular items for the stall to actually be sold. It might end up seeming somewhat cluttered, but Eisen figured that he could change the display around a little depending on what people are most interested in.
In the end, Eisen just spent the whole night doing nothing but work on these items in bulk. Well, not the whole night, he did end up sleeping a little while so that he could properly take care of the stall. It seemed like Sigurd was able to finish the next floor up properly as well, and now only had to place the different monsters there. They weren't necessarily as extremely changed around as the wolves on the first floor were, but Eisen tried his best to emulate the things that the others did to an amount.
And then, as Eisen stepped back out of the Dungeon, he took a look at Sky and Bree with his regular smile on his face. "So... This town is relatively small, right?" He asked, and Bree swiftly nodded her head in response.
"Mhm! It's just baaareely not a village anymore though. So it's really not that big. And it doesn't have a Dungeon yet either, so we're lucky!" She exclaimed, so Eisen just chuckled and looked ahead along the road, trying to somehow see the place already. He thought he saw a little bit in the distance, but it was still a fair bit away, so it would probably take another hour or two to get there at this point.
Although, it did seem like they were getting close to a town, considering how players became more frequent. They had a handful of run-ins over the past few days, most of the players were pretty pleasant, but there were a few that Eisen figured to be quite annoying or rude, so they just took care of that properly.
But right now, they were starting to see some players every couple of minutes, even. They were usually doing their own thing, but there were someone that was hoping to hitch a ride to town, seemingly.
Eisen thought he shouldn't be rude, and as such chose to accept them in the carriage, considering that it was just a single person. And, Eisen himself was pretty interested in this man as well, for a few reasons.
For one, his skin was so pale it could be seen as pure white, and he had slightly lengthy ears. That made him think he was a High Elf at first, but when he took a closer look, he very much wasn't a High Elf. That would have been weird, considering that the only reason that Xenia was allowed to play a High Elf was that she was an Original. It was probably the only Elven race that couldn't be chosen by regular players.
His eyes were completely white all the way through, without pupils or irises, and he had black rings around them. His whole body was pretty slender and outwardly seemed quite frail, while his hair was a pale shade of blue.
And according to what Eisen's inspection of him told him, he was a 'Changeling' player. Eisen didn't know this was a thing until now, but apparently it was! It seemed like a pretty interesting race, so Eisen couldn't help but ask a few questions as they were sitting in the back of the carriage, although the player himself was apprently more interested in the three monster kids and Fafnir, who, despite the Dungeon Gate currently being closed, was still lazily sleeping on the floor.
"So..." Eisen said with a light smile on his face, "Changeling, huh?" The old man asked, and the player quickly turned toward the old man whose face was slightly hidden in the darkness of the carriage.
"Mhm, that I am. The name's Dragoon, by the way." He pointed out, and Eisen nodded with a slight smirk. "Nice to meet you, I'm Eisen. So what are you doing in this area?" The old man asked, before Dragoon just smiled back. "Simply traveling through. I'm pretty interested in monsters, so I want to see a lot of different kinds." He explained, so Eisen slowly started moving his fingers through his beard.
"Oh, so that's why you've been staring at the kids this much." The old man said with a smile, and Dragoon immediately snapped his neck toward him. "I'm not some pervert or something! It-It's my occupation skill, it's a special Appraisal sub-type... I can recognize them as monsters with my whole body without even actually appraising them... so I can also tell that everyone beside me in this carriage is technically a monster, right..?" Dragoon asked, before Eisen raised his brows surprised, just nodding his head.
"Not directly, but you're right. Those two in the front and me are half-monsters, but we're still people. And don't worry, I figured it was something like that. And a special form of Appraisal, huh...? I figured, Monster Researcher should have that kind of thing." Eisen replied slightly impressed, and Dragoon just slightly smiled as he calmed down and leaned back against the wall behind him, before realizing what Eisen just said.
"Huh? How do you know my occupation... You didn't appraise me..." He muttered quietly, and the old man just smirked and crossed his arms as he let his golden eyes flash up for just a moment. "Let's say I have a special form of appraisal as well. So I could also see that you're an Alpha Artificial." The old man chuckled, and Dragoon stared at him surprised.
"R-Right..." He muttered, before starting to look around himself through the carriage, noticing the bunch of different tools that were hanging on the walls as well as the few items scattered around.
"Y-You're a craftsman?" Dragoon asked, trying to change the topic, simply because he felt slightly intimidated by Eisen's current presence, and the old man nodded his head in reply.
"That I am, bud. Why, need anything made?" Eisen inquired, and the Changeling thought about it for a moment then scratched the back of his neck. "Erm, kinda... But how much are your rates? I'm Rank 3 in the Tamer Guild, but I don't really have THAT much money..." Dragoon inquired, and the old man just smirkedand shook his head.
"Don't worry about that for now, just go ahead and tell me what you want made, and then I'll give you a rough estimate. Who knows, if they're interesting items, I might give you a little discount." With a wink, Eisen leaned back against the wall of the carriage, just waiting for the Changeling in front of him to speak up, before Dragoon scratched his cheek and then quickly did so.
"Alright then... For one, I would love to have an item to help me gather and save information about monsters that I find. I do have a database skill for that, but it feels kind of boring like that, you know? I like the feel and aesthetic of a proper item in my hands." Dragoon admitted with a slight smirk, and the old man slowly nodded his head in response. He figured things like that might be the case with some players, considering the vast amount of gadgets or tools you can sometimes see in movies or comics and such.
"You said 'For one'... Is there something else you want as well?" The old man asked curiously, and Dragoon slowly nodded his head as he stood up, starting to look Eisen up and down. "Sorry, this might feel slightly uncomfortable..." He muttered, and as Eisen started to feel insane goosebumps all over his body, far stronger and more intense than what he felt with a regular appraisal, Dragoon's body slightly started to change. He bulked up quite a bit, his face turned more defined and white facial hair grew from him as his skin turned into a somewhat tanned regular skin color instead of the pale skin he had before.
And before the old man knew it, Dragoon changed into a shorter version of himself. There were a few parts that were slightly off, so it wasn't directly a perfect copy, but if you saw Dragoon and a slightly shrunken-down Eisen next to one another, you would think they were siblings that looked very similar to each other.
His clothes didn't change, but that was something Eisen somewhat expected. Even if Dragoon could change his clothes in this manner, he figured that he wouldn't want to expose this much skin.
"Because I'm a changeling, I can change the way I look, but I'm still a few ranks and a couple hundred levels away away from being able to completely copy the way someone or something looks, especially when it comes to the size... So if possible I would like an item that can maybe 'Fill in the Space' to make me at least seem larger." Dragoon asked, and with a grin on his face, Eisen placed his cheek onto his palm.
"You found just the right Craftsman, kid."