VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 9: Maiden’s New Clothes

Taste exploded in Belladonna’s mouth as she sunk her teeth into supple young flesh. She had to force herself to pull away, eagerly licking her lips for every last drop that still lingered on them. She could never understand why vampires in movies always made such a mess, with blood covering their mouths and dripping down their chins.

But especially now, she knew that it was such an awful depiction. Why would they ever waste even a single drop of such sweet nectar, never mind have it covering half their face and dripping down their chin.

’Well, You might have been an awful person, but you were such a wonderful meal.’

She giggled to herself, before unceremoniously letting go of the body and letting it collapse to the ground like a sack of potatoes. A fitting description, considering their clothing.

Humming a merry tune to herself, Belladonna quickly took the girls bags, as well as looted all the items from the simps bags, before tearing the sword from the man’s corpse and taking the sheath from his hip.

She slid the weapon inside, after cleaning the blood from it, before strapping it to her hip and hurrying out of the alleyway before they could return.

Using the thick smoke pouring from the chimney as a guide, Belladonna hurried towards the blacksmiths, and found herself standing in front of an impressive building, with a stone bricked attachment on the side. There was a sign hanging above the door, written in whatever language it was this world used. Which meant it was a language she didn’t read.

Luckily, when she got within a certain radius of the signs, mystical projections appeared in front of them in a language she could read, and it read as such;

"A Nice Ring to It"

Which was a... unique name, to say the least. At least it had a sign with a picture of an anvil, as well as a needle and thread.

When she headed inside of the oddly named store, a bell attached to the door gently jingled, alerting the store clerk to her presence, as they currently had their back to the door and were busy polishing a suit of armour that was being presented on a stand.

"Hello there~ How can I help you today?"

They turned to face her, showing themselves to be a Hellion with bubble gum pink skin and chestnut brown hair. A pair of short, nubby horns sprouted from their forehead and their eyes were pure black.

Although they had a thin, short build and a pretty, androgynous face that made it hard to judge gender on appearance, they seemed to be a young man, judging by the voice. He didn’t look any older than 16, but he might just have a youthful appearance..

"Uh Hi, I was looking for the blacksmiths. Is this the right place? It’s hard to tell by the name."

The young Hellion’s bright smile dropped and irritation quickly took over his face as he let out a deep sigh.

"Yes yes... This is the town blacksmiths. I’ve told my father to change the name countless times, but he just won’t listen.

He was still deciding on the name when he got the sign made by a goblin merchant, the problem is the goblin didn’t speak our language all that well."

"Let me guess, he asked the goblin for a name suggestion. To write something with ’a nice ring to it’."

The Hellion let out a deep, mournful sigh as he leaned on the counter.

"Yeah... Dad thought it was so funny, he just kept it. Even though it makes no sense. Anyways... Now you know you’re in the right place, what can I do for you friend?"

He stood up straight again, putting on a professional smile, although it was much more forced this time, as he gestured Belladonna over to the counter.

She sauntered over, pulling the sword from her belt and placing it on the counter.

"I was hoping I could trade this in or sell it, get something more suitable to me. Longswords aren’t my deal."

The Hellion frowned slightly but nodded, taking the sword and inspecting it for a few seconds before placing it down on the counter.

"Well, we can certainly do that. Although I have to say I wasn’t expecting to see it back so soon. I only sold it five minutes ago and yet here it is, barely a scratch on it and with a different owner."

Belladonna simply shrugged in response. She knew what he was implying, but so what? She won it fair and square.

The store clerk inspected her suspiciously for a few seconds before shrugging himself.

"Oh well, just means I can sell it again. I can give you 50% of its price as trade."

"90%"

The Hellion scowled at her offer, folding his arms across his chest.

"60%"

"80"

"70% final offer."

"Deal. Give me a knife, something that can work offensively and for skinning afterwards."

They shook on the deal and the clerk got to work, taking the sword and heading into the backroom, coming out a few seconds later with a selection of knives, to which Belladonna chose the second cheapest option.

A steel, single edged knife with a carved wooden grip for 4 and a half Solis.

The Clerk placed the knife on the table, as well as the rest of the coins she had left from the trade, which only amounted to 2 Solis and 3 Brut. Still, not a bad deal considering.

She got a better weapon basically for free and the merchant got to make another profit reselling it. A win win.

Just as they were finalising the deal, her eyes idly drifted to the shining, full plate armour the young boy had been polishing when she entered.

"Say... Do you by any chance do leather working?"

A wide, mischievous grin spread across the merchant’s face, his eyes practically glittering gold as she could literally feel herself turning into a walking coin pouch in his mind. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Why yes. Yes we do."

***

A few minutes, and a lot of feverish negotiation later, Belladonna stepped out of the oddly named store with a satisfied smile on her face. Gone were the ratty potato sack clothing, and in their place she wore a simple leather armour with plated squares to reinforce it.

It was crafted from the hide of local monsters, the adult version of the Stonemunchers, and made by the young man himself, who was the leatherworker of the shop. It fit her body surprisingly well, despite not having been tailored for her. A benefit of the game, no doubt. At least it made some compromises on immersion where it mattered.

Thick leather covered her vitals, while thinner patches were used for places where mobility was required. It came with a high collar that clung tight to her neck, just enough to protect it but not so tight as to make her feel choked or to prevent her head from moving.

She was offered the option of a helmet, but it looked too garish, and simply opted for the option with a hood instead. It wouldn’t be as good as a helmet to protect her head, but it was better than nothing.

Plus, even she knew that style was the most important factor in game armour. Style triumphed all. Except, maybe, if it had unbelievable stats. But that wasn’t a concern here.

In place of metal plating for reinforcement, Stone plates covered parts of her thighs, shins, chest and shoulders while her hands were covered with leather gloves that covered up her forearm. More square stone plates covered those, forearm, back of the hand and on her knuckles.

Even though they had used stone in place of steel, it wasn’t actually worse in terms of defence. The stone was magic, and taken from the Stonemunchers themselves. He had even given her a demonstration, showing that the stone was just as durable as steel, but was surprisingly lighter.

Its only downside was how difficult it was to forge, meaning it couldn’t be made into a sword or an edged weapon.

Rough, square plates and mallets were the best it could be used for.

Belladonna flexed her fingers, testing the dexterity in the gloves, before clenching them into tight fists. The plates on her knuckles stuck out slightly, and had a rough edge that wouldn’t play nicely with bare flesh.

If she gave the illustrious ’LusciousLox’ her beating with these bad boys on, she would have carved up her pretty face as well as broken and bruised it, all without hurting her own knuckles.

She performed a few stretches and practice moves, checking the flexibility of the armour, especially when it came to kicks and punches. It was strange to feel the muscles in her legs tightening as she moved, stretching them to their limit.

It had been a long time since she had even felt the muscles in her legs at all, other than the occasional bouts of agonizing pain. But she could still remember her martial art days when she was younger.

The sore muscles, the bruises from pummelling each other, the cramps from over working. It was nice.

She wasn’t as flexible as she remembered, but that was understandable. Plus, in other Deep Dive VR games muscle flexibility wasn’t a factor, so she could stretch as much as she wanted. So it was definitely odd to feel her body fighting against itself, at least in this way. But... It was nice.

It reminded her of all the days she spent with her brother as he helped her train, before her disease had robbed her of her dreams.

A smile crept onto her lips and a few tears trickled down her cheeks which she hastily wiped away.

’Well then, Looks like I’ve got a decade of training to catch up on.’