"Stahl!" A young man exclaimed as he ran into the workshop that the green-haired Jack was working in to learn some more crafting skills, before he turned around and looked at the one that just entered the room.
"What"s up, Sky?" He asked with a smile a he set down the gla.s.s he was working with to get the Gla.s.sblowing skill, before the Fey-kin boy smiled brightly at Stahl.
"Eisen woke up!" He yelled, and Stahl immediately ripped his eyes wide open and dropped his tools, not caring for what was going on at all. "Bird dude, lizard dude, you can go as well now!" Stahl yelled at Jyuuk"s two tamed monsters that once more helped him out with his crafting.
And then, Stahl immediately sprinted out of the room and up the stairs to the meeting hall. Stahl completely tried to not think about what was going on with his grandfather at the moment, because even on the second day, he didn"t want to be visited. And apparently now, he suddenly came back home without saying anything and laid down in the capsule.
On his way, he happened to meet Evalia, who was also making her way up to the meeting hall to see if everything was alright with Eisen. It"s been a few days since their date in game-time, and the two of them were doing really well, although they still didn"t make anything "Official". At this point, though, basically everyone knew that something was going on between them, because they didn"t try that hard to hide it either.
But now, neither of them really said anything and just hurried to meet the Giant of a man who finally returned from the hospital!
As the players were the only ones that knew about Eisen"s condition, with the exception of Samurai, Kyla, Zyra and Vardia, only they gathered, as well as the NPCs that were especially close to Eisen, meaning Sky, Bree, and Kiron.
"Grampa!" Stahl exclaimed as he ripped open the door, hitting it immediately against the chest of the old man he was looking for. And without a second word, Stahl threw himself at his grandfather to hug him, because he was worried out of his mind about him.
"Hey, hey, be careful!" The old man said with a laugh as he returned the hug, before Eisen stepped out of the door with a smile, just to breathe in the air properly.
"Ah, great to be back." He said with a smile, before Eisen looked to the side and typed something up, sending it to Stahl via the chat, and the young man nodded his head toward his grandfather after reading the message.
"Now, all of you. Want to fill me in on what happened while I was asleep?" Eisen asked with a smile as he leaned against the railing, just enjoying the wind a little more, before Brody spoke up first.
"Well, the kids ended up doing a few crazy things. And with that, I mean Komer and Stahl in particular. The rest of us really just stuck to regular training, I"d say." The Demon-Orc explained, so Eisen looked at the two young men who were mentioned, before nodding his head.
"Then let"s head back inside and talk about it, shall we?" Eisen suggested with a broad grin and stepped into the room again, sitting back down on his chair, where Caria and Melissa were still sleepily rubbing their eyes.
But before anything else happened, Stahl leaned back in the chair he sat down in and looked at Sky with a nod. And so, nervously, the young Fey-kin stood up and grabbed one of the books that he was carrying with him, bringing it over to Eisen.
"Erm… You were gone for a while, so I didn"t get to learn Bookbinding from you. So I got Stahl"s help, and we figured it out on our own. So… This is for you…" Sky said with an obvious blush on his cheeks, even though he was trying to hide it from everyone.
With a bright smile, Eisen extended his arm and placed in on the top of the young fey-kin"s head. "Yeah, sorry about that. So, then let me just take a look at this…" Eisen told Sky, and while everyone was curiously looking at the scene of the old t.i.tan-Sized man flipping through a regular-sized book with a man in the body of a child standing next top him, Eisen started to read through the book that Sky had prepared for him.
It was filled with numerous information about everything that may be important to him in any way. A Compendium of materials of magical and non-magical nature alike, as well as the places where they could be found, and how expensive they usually were. And on top of that, there was even somehow a number that told him how much was in the storage at the moment, even though he didn"t really know how that worked.
It did seem like the actual number was somehow different to the others, so maybe Sky used one of his Scribe abilities for that. He most likely got some help from the others for this project anyway, so maybe Xenia helped him figure out a way to scan and calculate the amount of materials, while then transfering it to the paper in the book.
But what was most valuable to Eisen in this book was the fact that there was a detailed description of what those materials were most commonly used for, and what their natural abilities were.
And that was valuable to Eisen as he could only really know of the value and qualities of materials that existed in real life. Due to the fact that he was now most likely completely unable to continue his craft in real life, and would need to continue with such things here in the game world without any hope of continuing to do so in the real world.
"Oh, you even put different cuts of meats from monsters in here!" Eisen exclaimed with a bright smile, which had continued to grow even brighter the more he flipped through the book anyway. And as the old man then turned toward Sky, Eisen made all of the week-long work that went into it worth it.
"Thank you, Sky. I love it!" The old man said, and Sky smiled brightly, just like a child really would. He really wasn"t a child, and most of the time he didn"t act like it either, but sometimes, in moments like these, Sky acted like his outer appearance suggested. Most of the people currently in the room didn"t know that Sky could be like this, or that he could even smile in any situation other than when people got hurt, so this was an incredible sight to everyone.
And now, the happy Sky, even though he noticed that everyone was looking at him weirdly, made his way back to his chair and sat down next to his sister, before Eisen turned toward the two young men that he was quite curious about now.
"So, who out of the two of you wants to go first?" Eisen asked as he showed his pearly whites, before Stahl immediately responded, wanting to brag about what he had done to his Grandfather, who luckily seemed to be in a better mood and mindset than he had expected initially.
Stahl was kind of p.i.s.sed off that they weren"t allowed to visit him for some reason, because he was obviously hiding something that he didn"t want them to know about, but in the end, as long as he was fine that"s all that mattered to Stahl. And after what had happened with his father before, Stahl didn"t want to have a huge fight with another family member in the very same week.
On top of that, it would surely just make Xenia, who was already seemingly quite messed up after seeing Eisen again, even more upset.
"So… While you were asleep, I"ve been working toward a special occupation. I"ve learned Crafting skills on my own, which you might need to help me with in a bit, and I"ve learned under Xenia, Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody as well. Well, I"m still learning under them… I"m kind of cycling around everyone to try to get my skills up as high as I can. I also got the Trading skill, a pickpocket skill, and a few other neat skills that I brought up to Rank 1. I managed to get some of them to Rank 2 already, though. Still waiting a bit to get my Mana Manipulation skill to Rank up again though." Stahl explained quite proudly, before Eisen looked at him in surprise.
"You"ve learned all of those categories of skills? How long was I out?" He asked with a big laugh, before Stahl crossed his arms with a smug smirk. "Yup, I"m amazing, aren"t I? I"ve got my tamed monster right here as well! His name is Thul!"
"An Octopus?" Eisen asked, once more surprised, and Stahl nodded his head again. "Mhm! And also, I have a Golem that I"ve been working on quite heavily, and five cute little skeletal animals that I"ve painted!" Stahl explained, before scratching the back of his head. "Although I can"t show you the golem yet, he"s not completely finished…" Stahl explained, and Eisen nodded his head.
"Don"t worry, show it to me when you have time. And show me what you can do with your skills later as well, of course! Also…" Eisen exclaimed, although he started grinning wrily as he looked at Stahl. "… If you"ve learned from the others, then I"ll properly have you learn from me." He told his grandson, who slowly nodded his head, already having expected such a thing.
"Then you and I will talk more about this later, arlight?" Eisen asked with a smile, and Stahl immediately nodded his head.
"Alright, and now-" The old man started to say and then looked at Komer, although he was swiftly interrupted by a notification telling him that someone was trying to forcefully open the capsule, and that he would be logged off for safety purposes.
---
Confused, Benjamin looked around himself inside of the capsule and then at the bright light that flooded into the capsule.
"What the f.u.c.k, Grampa?!" Sophia yelled out as she looked down at the old man, really not able to hold back any sort of her anger in any possible way. Benjamin understood why she was that way, so he let her.
Sophia was wearing makeup, something which she usually never did, because she just got back from her Date with Kim.
"Oh, Sweetie, you"re back already? I didn"t think we could expect you so early!" The old man said with a big grin, before he sat up inside of the capsule. It was quite hard, as he couldn"t properly get a grip on anything, and his sense of balance was quite a bit off as well.
"Don"t give me that s.h.i.+t! What the h.e.l.l is going on?! Why didn"t you tell us about this?" She yelled out angrily, and Benjamin simply looked at his Granddaughter with a soft smile.
"Because I myself was scared. I was completely terrified of what was going on. I"ve been talking to a Therapist at the hospital about all of this, actually, and he said that it was completely natural and that it"s okay to be scared and all that c.r.a.p. But I was still scared, Sophia. I"m sorry for not telling you, but I guess I just didn"t want to believe it myself." Benjamin explained, while he heard someone slide down the wall outside of his room. Most likely that was Tony, who was listening in on the conversation and didn"t know how to deal with everything himself.
"But hey, it has one good thing. I finally lost those last few pounds everyone keeps talking about!" Benjamin said with a laugh, although he himself knew that he was more than just forcing himself to keep that smile up, while his Granddaughter simply threw herself at her Grandfather in tears.
And so, the old man sat there, hooked up to numerous tubes and cables, staring down at the place where his right arm once was.