| 50th November 363 SR
Researching the Gift
I knew that soon I would gain the right to add my personal mark to my highest quality tinkercrafted items, just as I do with smithied items, and that much fine jewelry, some magical, could be crafted by tinkers. I dreamed of making items the fame of which rang across the world, such as the Pendant of the Magi. I knew, too, that these required resources of great rarity and cost, and demanded much skill to make well. And I would choose the finest gold to fashion a bracelet or pendant to give to the love of my heart.
But when the day came when at last I received my mark-rights, I found that my mark could be affixed to only very few items. Undaunted, I set about researching the items and the resources they would need.
It was then that it began to dawn on me just how difficult this task would be. All items that may bear the maker’s unique mark require large numbers of rare gems obtainably by mining - over and above larger numbers of lesser gems that could be purchased at any good jewelers shop for a few thousand gold. At the same time, the chances of making a lesser quality item were more than half, even with the aid of a powerful tinker’s talisman. I could mine for years to find enough rare gems to eventually succeed – or buy them from a vendor for a small fortune, perhaps 100,000 gold! Moreover, some of the resources for the more fabulous magic jewelries needed the successful completion of a difficult quest to obtain. Such items needed quests involving legendary warrior skills - which of course I don’t have. If only good stealth would suffice to get close enough to take the resource needed!
I began to despair of ever making a gift worthy for me to give to the love of my life.
But heartened by Gwen Irima’s encouragement, I began to understand that VanQa was not one to measure worth and value by such base considerations. I am who I am and can only do my best. I need nay prove anything that I am not. I would make a magic bracelet for my love that needed 10 rare gems of one kind, like fire rubies or blue sapphires, and 20 lesser gems of the same kind, and would pray to the virtues that I would succeed at the first attempt to make an item of such quality that it would be able to bear my mark. |