Looking for Armour

[Augustus]

Augustus walked down the broad avenue that held the bazaar. The noisy clamourings of the hawkers selling their wares and the general hub-bub of the city made it difficult for Augustus to use his skills at detecting muggers and the like, but it was doubtful that any muggers would be around in broad daylight and they would be even less likely to attack the capable looking wanderer.

What Augustus was looking for was a store that sold armour. Not just any armour, mind you, but reasonable quality, slightly unusual armour. It was unusual because so few people knew about it, but that didn't matter all that much because it was easy to modify existing armour to suit Augustus' purposes. Spotting a likely shop, Augustus ducked in and, as soon as one attendant was free went over to him and asked,

"Got any padded jacks in stock?"

[AdventWings]

"Umm... Pardon, sir?"

The store attendant turned his head from a departing customer to acknowledge Augustus, the request seemingly outlandish to the local man. He looked at the other staffers, hoping to get some help from the more experienced workers, but all he found were none that was free to lend a hand.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir." He sheepishly replied. "I will need a bit of a description of what exactly you are looking for. If you could tell me the specifics, I can help find you that one item you want the most."

[Augustus]

Augustus nodded. He had known that he might have to explain what it was, seeing as so few people knew what it was nowadays. In some of the older tomes that he had read it had been mentioned often as the best possible armour for a poorer man. While he wasn't poor, Augustus did want the protection that a padded jack could give him.

"It's eighteen layers of vlince, canvas or leather quilted together. Sometimes it has scale mail on the outside to protect the cloth from excessive damage."

Hopefully they would have at least one in stock. If they did, then Augustus wouldn't have to worry about having an arrow kill him by hitting him in the chest. The head of the legs he couldn't do that much about, but Augustus doubted that he would ever meet an archer who went for his head first.

[AdventWings]

Listening to the customer made the merchant understand immediately what he needed to get. Flipping through a small tome in front of him, he looked up the materials and designs before announcing the price to his customer.

"Ah, yes. Layered armour is what you're looking for, yes?" The rookie asked, tallying up the prices for the different items in stock. "We currently have shirts and jerkin designs at the moment made of leather, canvas and vlince. The prices here are 775 gold pieces for a Masterwork Vlince shirt, 150 for shirts of layered leather and 175 for a shirt of layered canvas. A layered leather jerkin, however, costs only 125 gold pieces and comes with wool lining."

For the sake of his customer's ease of following what he said, the merchant wrote out the list on a piece of parchment and slid it across the hardwood counter, the quilll pen still in hand.

"Here's the list. If you would like ones with iron scales riveted to the leather items, they will cost 25 more than the ones listed here."


- Masterwork Layered Vlince Shirt: 775 Gold Pieces

- Layered Leather Shirt: 150 Gold Pieces

- Layered Canvas Shirt: 175 Gold Pieces

- Layered Leather Jerkin: 125 Gold Pieces

[Augustus]

Augustus observed the list for several moments, while he made up his mind. The vlince was too expensive, which left him with a difficult choice. Should he choose the padded jack made from leather, canvas or by the short sleeved leather version. The iron scales he would have added to any to his choices but he still had the difficult problem of which he should choose.

Canvas was probably more resistant to stabbing attacks than the leather, but the leather was probably better against slashing attacks. A sudden realisation dawned on Augustus. Why worry about slashing attacks if he was going to have scale mail to protect it from attacks? What's more, what was the point of having something with sleeves that would be easily be damaged by the most likely attack on them? The leather version was a better option.

One more problem remained. Iron was all well and good, but it was soft and was damaged more easily than steel.

"Just out of curiosity, do you offer the scales in steel or even a titanium-tungsten alloy known as wolframtit?

OOC: wolframtit weighs roughly the same as steel.

[AdventWings]

((OOC Note: Remember that high-level alchemy and metallurgy is largely unknown to the known world at the current timeframe. Therefore, there are only two alloys currently in manufacture: Steel and Delyn. Also, Althanian Titanium is very different from Earth Titanium and extremely rare. Tungsten probably has not even been found useful by the natives, either. Therefore, you'll just have to settle for steel or other metals.))

"...Wolfram...tit?"

The word tangled up the merchant's tongue as he tried to pronounce it before finally giving up in the end.

"Well, I'm not sure if we have such specialty metal such as that." He weakly replied. "Also, we really don't have much items of Titanium either - the Alerans don't usually import that unless in the form of firearms. And very expensive ones at that. However..."

The merchant fumbled through a drawer in the lower shelves, retrieving three metallic squares from different ones and placed them on the table. One had the shine of a well-polished steel, one shining brilliant grey and the third a lustrous midnight tone.

"Asides from iron, we also have scales in Steel, Damascus and Delyn. Steel is quite stronger, and lighter than iron. Good for overall defense and cheap protection against slashing strikes. Damascus here is great if you want something better than Steel - Stronger and lighter than that metal. It does have a tendency to be vulnerable to magical attacks, though, so that's one thing you should be looking out for. As for Delyn here, better than both. A bit heavier than Damascus, mind you, but fairly more resistent to magical attacks."

Taking a breath before continuing his merchant banter, the rookie quickly ran the numbers through his head before announcing the prices of each upgrade.

"That'll be... 50 for ones of Steel, 130 for ones of Damascus and 200 for ones of Delyn. I would recommend Delyn plates myself, as they're the best overall."