He stood against the tree, his bronze hatchet cleaving away at the unfortunate common tree outside a castle he didn't know the name of. He had left Ashdale in search of adventure, yet he was left with chopping down some tree outside a courtyard. "pfft, stupid tree", he thought for himself. What our hero didn't know was the looming threat that would fall upon him.
In the distance he spotted another man approaching him. Our hero beat a sweat off his brow as he finally fell the tree and got a a fine piece of log from the tree. The other man had reached his destination, "'ello?" the man inquired, "Can't you see I'm busy with this damn tree?", our hero replied. "well, you got any coin you could spare?", the man asked. "What? Who are you? Grand Exchange tax guard?" our hero scowled back. "Oi, take no offence, I'm just Lachtopher ... soooo, no spare change? You seem like you got money." This Lachtopher fella seemed like some lazybones, asking strangers for money. "Even if I had any coin, I wouldn't give it to the first stranger walking up to me! Bugger off, Lachtopher!" "No need to get fiesty, geez."
Lachtopher looked displeased, even annoyed. Our hero walked up to the next tree while the first tree was still growing back.
Our hero spent a good 5 minutes filling his backpack with logs from trees, which he thought would make good arrow shafts. He pulled his knife from his toolbelt and proceeded to fletch arrow shafts. They were surprisingly easy to fletch, a good 15 shafts from each log, he figured.
'Lazy' Lachtopher returned, now with a stupid grin on his face, "'ey, fella!" he said, "I got some coin from some other guy in som' fancy armour." "So what?" Our hero angrily replied, "Well, don't you want to know how much he gave me?" "I don't care!" our hero lied, he was a tad curious as to how much someone would give this buffoon. "Ah-hahah, he gave me 10 gold coins!" Lachtopher smirked. "So what?! I got a lot more than that! Bugger off, Lachtopher." Our hero thought that anyone would be joyous over such a meager amount of gold coins would try to boast to him was utterly pathetic, although, he could use 10 gold coins himself, to buy a shears.
His mind wandered, while he stared at Lazy Lachtopher's 10 gold coins, what he wouldn't get for doing some farmer's work, shearing the sheep near by.
He had earlier talked with Fred the Farmer, and he had promised to give plenty of gold coins for shearing his sheep, our hero just didn't have any pair of shears to do the job properly, and this old, but still sharp, knife wouldn't do the job.
"Well! I'm off to the Port Sarim Pub! Cya!" Lachtopher grinned. This was his chance. As soon as 'Lazy' Lactopher turned around our, so-called, hero with his oh so quick nimble fingers pickpocketed Lactopher's money pouch and got all the 10 gold coins. Our hero remained silent with a half-smile on his face while Lachtopher marched off. If only he could see the look on his stupid face when he was supposed to buy for his pint. Oh well, such pleasures are thief'ers delights.
"Screw these arrow shafts", our hero thought, "I'm getting myself some shears from the General Store."
"Hello, how may I help you?" The General Store assistant smiled. "One shears, please." Our hero felt a little guilty now, buying a tool with stolen money, just not guilty enough to stop himself from getting a pair of shears. "That'll be 1 gold coin." "Here", our hero reached into his money pouch and gave the assistant 1 gold coin, 9 gold coins left.
He went North to the Fred the Farmer, "Hey, about that job ..." "So you got some shears now, eh?" "Yes", our hero replied. "Well, get crackin'! And mind the 'Thing' too."
Our hero spent a good 3 minutes running from sheep to sheep with the shears and literally shearing their fleece off.
Suddenly, something unexpected happened; without warning, one of the sheep kept wandering off, impossible to shear. Was this the Thing? Nah, just some belligerent sheep, our hero thought.
Our hero collected a full backpack of wool and went to Fred the Farmer, "Here!" our hero proudly announced, "28 wools for ya, sir." "Thanks! Here's your 60 gold coins" Now our hero has 69 gold coins, a mystical number. "Want any more wool?" "Nah." replied Fred. "By the way, I think I saw the 'Thing', Fred!" "What now?" Fred looked a bit anxious "Seriously, I saw one sheep that was not like the rest. I think it was the 'Thing'" Our hero was persistent in his speculation. "I think you've been in the sun too long, young'in" Fred said in disbelief. "Suit yourself." our hero replied, and wandered off.
Our hero walked back to the General Store and walked up to the assistant "Excuse me, miss." "Yes? What can I help you with?" "Do you sell pickaxes?" our hero inquired. "Oh, don't think so, let me ask the Shopkeeper." The assistant walked to the Shopkeeper and after a short exchange came back to our hero. "I'm sorry, sir, we don't sell pickaxes." "Oh." Our hero was a tad disappointed, he had set his mind to mine some tin and copper to get some armour and weapon. "Well, where ..." our hero was interrupted, "... but you can buy pickaxes from Bob. He's just south of here, past the Castle entrance." The Assistant smiled lovingly. "Thanks, appreciate it."
Our hero walked past some weird guy, all dressed in darkish brown; must be one of those crazy end-of-times people. And another guy in adorned blue and white, he looked helpful. A few houses ahead and our hero spotted a sign that said "Bob's Brilliant Axes", "huh?" our hero thought, "this place sells pickaxes?"
Our hero entered the building and was greeted by Bob, "Welcome, welcome. Fanzy an axe? Iron? Steel? Or perhaps some lightweight mithril, one of our finest wares!" "woah, slow down." Our hero was taken aback. "I just want a bronze pickaxe" "pfft, one of those guys." Bob, with a fling of his hand, presented a bronze pickaxe before our hero had the chance to blink, "Here, a free sample, sir, and may it be in your taste." "Free?" "Yup, ... oh, and before he forget, here's a waiver if you should injure yourself with the pickaxe and a user disclosure, the usual stuff." "Usual stuff?" Our hero was a tad puzzled. "Don't worry about it." "Now take your damn pickaxe ... and please come again."
With that weird experience, our hero went back to the helpful looking old man.
The old man in white and blue held a strange looking staff, which looked like a question mark. "Excuse me, sir." Our hero asked quietly. "Ahh, good day to you, my friend. How may I assist you?" The old man said. "uhhm, do you know where I can find a mine? You know? Where I can mine some tin and copper?" Our hero was delightfully surprised at the mild mannered voice and eloquent tone. "Certainly, friend. The nearest mine is to the South of here, just follow the shore line and past a bridge and you should reach a small mining site with copper and tin ore. It is just outside Lumbridge Swamp" The old man had a strength about him that had not faded with age and a voice of assurance. "Much obliged." You responded with a half-bowed head.
With an empty backpack and a bronze pickaxe in hand, our hero ventured South. He came across some fishing spots where he could see fish mingling. That must be a good spot to catch some fish, our hero thought. A few steps later he came upon the mining site, and sure enough as the old man had told him, there was glistening rocks with tin and copper ore aplenty.
Another miner was already there, he must've been more experienced as he was wielding a steel pickaxe. He mined with quick speed and accuracy and filling his backpack with speed he had never seen before. An accomplished miner by far, our hero thought to himself.
With a tad unease our hero clenched his bronze pickaxe, feeling inferior to this other miner, and without greeting went to a rock containing tin and starting swinging at the rock; a few swings later our hero managed to unwrestle a piece of tin ore from the rock. The other miner didn't make a sound and hardly a brush of sweat on him either. He mined swiftly 3 of each more and ran away from the mining site, the time it took our hero to just get 1 copper.
Time flew by and this other, silent, miner came back to the mining site and away again 4 times it took our hero to fill his backpack with 14 copper and 14 tin ore.
Our hero was a tad agitated and curious, where did this other miner go with his ore? Our hero couldn't quite see where he was headed as he went off into the distance, but it didn't seem he went past or into the Castle.
The miner had come back to the mining site as our hero was heading out, aimlessly.
"E-Excuse me?" Our hero asked the silent miner. The miner didn't seem to take notice, and went about his business trawling through the ore rocks. "Excuse me!" our hero pressed. "What'd'ya want, rookie?" the miner sneered. Our hero was insisting: "Well, where do you go with that ore of yours?" "Al Kharid bank, of course, novice." The miner seemed surprised. "Where's that?" Our hero asked. "Really? You must be new to these lands, not a surprise since you're using a bronze pickaxe. Get that from Bob's '
Brillant
' axes, did you?" He was being sarcastic, and glaringly obviously so. "Just tell me, for Saradomin's sake!" Our hero didn't feel too good about this miner fella. "Look, just go across the bridge and you'll be right in Al Kharid, find the bank yourself, rookie."
The miner had already mined a full backpack of ore with all this chit-chat and went off again; our hero, without a second thought decided to follow the miner.
Sure enough, across a bridge and into a desert town with camels, and traders and roaming guards in the street, the miner went to what looked like a bank. Hardly exchanged any words and ran off again. Our hero stopped following the miner and stood a while baffled at this activity in the building. people ran back and forth from the building and going North from the building and South to it again. Everyone only exchanged a few words, and ran between this building and some location to the North of it.
Our hero went up to the booth and asked: "Hello?" The man behind the booth instantly and without hesitation said: "Welcome to Bank of RuneScape. How may I help you?" "Oooooh, so this is a bank?" The banker rolled his eyes, "Yes, sir. How may I be of assistance?" without flinching and with a monotonous voice. "Uhhm...", our hero paused to think, "I would like to know some things first. Can I open an account with you?" Our hero asked. With a slight pause the banker said: "... you already have an account with us, sir." "Oh?" That was strange, our hero thought. "OK, then, can I deposit this ore into the bank?" "Certainly, sir." The banker said with a monotonous voice again.
All the people running back and forth to the bank made our hero curious; what are they doing? Instead of asking someone, he decided to just follow one of the people, and a short instance later he saw what they were running to, a furnace and a tanner. They were obviously tanning hides and smelting ore down to bars!
Excited about this new information our hero ran back to the bank, "I'd like to make a withdrawal." "No need to ask for permission, we're here to serve you, sir." The Banker said.
Our hero withdrew the 14 copper and 14 tin ore that he had moments before deposited and ran to the furnace. He viewed as people poured various unrefined ores and coal into the furnace and retrieving bars of metal from the furnace. Without second thought after viewing this procedure he put a piece of copper and tin into the furnace, waiting a little while and withdrew a bronze bar! Strange stuff, our hero thought.
He proceeded to do this with the other 13 copper and 13 tin ores and got a total of 14 bronze bars which he happily ran back to the bank with and deposited.