Chapter 9: A Jewelsmith’s Journey of Self-Discovery and Lust

 

My mother was the only person who really liked me when I was a kid. My father accused me of being effeminate, and the other children my age thought I was strange. I had a tendency to lose myself in my imagination when I was younger, so many people just assumed there was something wrong with me. Pairing that with my gentle temperament and girlish looks, I didn’t exactly have many friends.

My father didn’t call me effeminate for no reason, at my age most kids were beginning to take on more muscular builds, and more masculine appearances; That simply wasn’t happening for me. I was getting taller, but my girlish face wasn’t changing and my lithe frame wasn’t filling out at all, much to my father's dismay. The very things he found attractive about my mother, he found distasteful in me.

It also didn’t help that I liked things that were “for girls.” While other boys my age were playing sports and getting into trouble, I was sitting at home reading and drawing. Every day my father would come home from work unhappy, and get even more unhappy when he saw me. The fact that I was a disappointment to him didn’t elude me. 

I really tried to please my dad. I did everything I could to make him happy with me, but I failed at every turn. Every time I tried to make friends, I was made fun of. Every time I tried to play sports, or do things other boys my age were doing, I embarrassed myself. No matter what I did, he would never be happy, so I gave up trying.

My mother, however, was the kindest person in my life, and the only one who I could ever turn to. Whenever I failed, she’d support me. Whenever I came back from trying to play with the other kids bloody and bruised, she’d hold me close and help me dress my wounds. But most of all, she supported me in doing the things I wanted to. She saw reading, drawing, and other “effeminate” things as a worthwhile pursuit, and for that, I was, and am, immensely grateful to her.

I was 8 years old when I found the pair of earrings that would change my life. They were sitting in a display case and caught my eye through a glass window while I was walking past them on the street. I was on a walk thinking about life when their gleam caught my eye. The moment that I saw them, I knew what I wanted.

I wanted to give them to my mom.

My mom had some jewelry, and I always found it fascinating. Whenever I’d try to touch it though, my dad would slap my hand away. It was both too expensive and too girly for me to be playing with, so I stopped trying.

But standing there on the street, the gold earrings were staggeringly, intoxicatingly beautiful. I could only imagine what they would look like on the most beautiful woman in the world.

I almost didn’t even notice when I grabbed the handle, opened the door, and stepped into the jewelry store. Inside, I found a treasure I didn’t know existed until that moment. Glittering adornments, with metals of all kinds of luster and gems of different sizes and colors, overwhelmed my senses. Every piece was so beautiful, from the silver pendant with a large turquoise stone set in it, to the gold bracelets placed carefully on pylons, each adorned with small, glittering jewels.

It was all so beautiful.

At that moment, I was in heaven. I slowly walked through the store, examining each piece, but never touching them. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to, as jewelry was for women.

That is until I saw an absolutely astonishing ear cuff earring. It was gold and was intended to run along the inner part of the ear, with a small drop at the bottom, holding a valuable gemstone. This one was beautiful, and my mother would look beautiful in it, but that wasn’t why it caught my eye.

I wanted to wear it. Without thinking, I reached out and lightly touched it.

It was at that moment, a voice yelled, “Hey, kid! What are you doing?”

I turned around to see a short, dark-skinned woman hurriedly walking over to me from the counter. “Don’t touch the merchandise!”

She gave me a stern look and started to pat me down, “You didn’t steal anything, did you?”

I was a pretty emotional kid. It was one of the reasons I got made fun of. Whenever anyone made fun of me or hit me, or I did something embarrassing, I would cry. Right now, I was getting called out for touching the jewelry that my father had already told me I shouldn’t touch, and it was too much for me to handle.

I started crying.

The woman took this as affirmation and started to search me more intensely.

After a few minutes, she realized that I didn’t have anything. “Why are you crying, kid? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I was in hysterics, but tried to blubber out a response, which was just, “I’m so sowwy!”

“You don’t need to be sorry! You didn’t take anything!”

“I didn’t mean to touch it!”

“The earring? It’s not that big of a deal, certainly not worth crying over!”

Slowly, she helped work me out of my inconsolable state and started to ask me questions like, “Where are your parents?”, “Why are you a mile away from home alone?”, and finally, “Why are you in here?”

“I saw the earrings and thought they’d look pretty on mommy.”

“You wanted the display earrings for your mom?”

I nodded.

She looked me up and down once and said, “Hm. So you want the earrings? How are you gonna pay for ‘em?”

My interest in the earrings was really just an idle fantasy. As a kid, I thought a lot and had a lot of ideas, but never really acted on them. I thought the earrings would be pretty on my mom, but there’s no way I would’ve actually done something about it. So, I simply responded, “I don’t have any money.”

“Figured. Do you like jewelry?”

I had to make sure that she knew that I didn't want jewelry for me, only for my mom. “It’s very pretty, but it’s for girls.”

“Pshhh, bullshit. Half my customers are men.”

I pointed my finger at her face, just a little too close for comfort, “Swear.”

She seemed confused, “What?”

“Swear word.”

She thought back on what she said, then a big smile sprouted on her face, “Yeah, I guess I said a swear.”

“You shouldn’t say that. It’s crude. Mommy said so.”

“Your mom is a smart woman. You should listen to her.”

I nodded. My mom was the smartest person that I knew, so to me, this was obvious.

Wearing that same smile on her face, she said “I could trade you the earrings, but you’d have to do something for me.”

She would… trade me the earrings for something? “What?”

“You could work here and help me with some stuff. If you do that for… let’s say… a month, I’ll give them to you.”

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A whole month? That was a really long time… but if I could get the earrings for my mom… “I’ll do it.”

And so, I got my first job. I told my mom about it when I got home but left out the part where I was working to get her a gift. My mom seemed a little worried at first and brought me to talk with my new employer. They had a talk, and my mom decided it was fine, so I started working there.

A whole month passed in no time at all. I didn’t ever handle any jewelry. Instead, I swept, dusted, kept the storefront clean as can be, and I helped with tending to customers. Finally, after 4 weeks of this, it was time to receive my prize. Liya, my employer, brought me to the backroom of The Glimmering Grasp, her store, and gave me a closed velvet box. Inside were the earrings I’d seen on that day a month ago. I thanked her, stuffed the box in my shirt to hide it, and made my way home. By almost complete chance her birthday was the day after tomorrow, so I figured I’d give them to her then.

On the morning of her birthday, my dad gave her a pretty bracelet, with a few stones I now recognized as amethyst. I’d learned a lot in my time at the store, so I knew it was a pretty stone, but it was rather inexpensive. It was set into silver, but based on the size and the stone I was pretty sure it was just plated. Still, my mother was happy, and I was happy for her.

After that, I told her that I had a gift for her, and could barely contain the excitement as I brought the expensive-looking box from my room. I carefully handed her the box, and when she opened it, her eyes went as wide as I’d ever seen them.

Inside were two matching chandelier earrings, made of solid gold. Set in the middle was gorgeous sapphire that I’d spent my days working fantasizing about her wearing.

My father was alternating between looking at them and looking at me while my mom set the box down in stunned silence.

In a wavering voice, she asked, “Florence, where did you get these?”

“Liya gave them to me.”

“Did she? Florence, did you steal these?”

“No!”

Once stealing was brought up, my dad flew off the handle, “You little shit!”

He tried to grab me, but I side-stepped him and he stumbled to the ground.

“Marcus, don’t touch him!” my mom yelled, but it didn’t really do much to stop him.

My dad scrabbled up from the ground and lunged at me, and I didn’t quite dodge in time. He grabbed me by my scruff and said, “Thief huh? I raised a thief, did I? I’ll tan your fucking—”

A loud knock emanated from the door, my dad hurriedly set me down and my mom took a second, composed herself, and answered the door.

Liya was at the door, with a small wrapped box and a concerned look on her face. “I heard a crash, is everything—”

My mom responded, “Everything’s fine! What brings you here today?”

“I brought a gift,” she handed it to my mom who took it gladly. “Also, I realized I did something that might cause some trouble, can I come in?”

“For sure.”

Liya explained that I had not stolen the earrings and that they were payment for my work. When she realized that the earrings might cause a bit of a misunderstanding, she decided to come to my house and explain things. She and my mom had become friends over the past few weeks, so it wasn’t odd for her to bring a gift.

I thanked my lucky stars that day because my dad was about to beat my ass.

It wasn’t weird that my parents thought I was stealing. There was absolutely no way that a month of cleaning the floors would pay for those earrings. If I were earning a normal wage for that work, it wouldn’t have even been 1/100th of the price of those earrings. Liya was exceptionally generous in her payment of my work, so much so that when my mom found out that those earrings were now hers she couldn’t help but jump for joy and throw a hug around both Liya and me, while my dad grumbled in the background, none too happy to have been shown up by his son.

Later that day, my mom and dad had an argument about the fact my mom had let me work at a jewelry store without his knowledge, and it quickly turned into a screaming match that I haven’t forgotten to this day.

My parents really did like each other. They rarely fought. The only thing they seemed to disagree on was me. Regardless, nothing could ruin that day for me, especially after I saw my mom in those earrings. She really did look amazing.

Ever since then, I’ve absolutely loved jewelry. Something about it, the luster, the color, the way people look when they wear it… I love it. It was almost like I was born for this one thing.

Because I was.

I kept working at The Glimmering Grasp even after the month had elapsed, and I learned a lot about jewelry. I even started to help a little bit with making jewelry at that time. The day I turned 10, my life changed drastically. It was the day my class was revealed.

My mom took me to the temple to divine my class. Normally both parents would do this, but my dad decided it was unimportant enough that he’d rather work, so he did. His job was important, as he was captain of the guard, but it still would’ve been a nice gesture to have been there. I think he was afraid of what my class would be. The class revealing was done in a big open room in the center of the temple. Kids would step forward one at a time, have their class revealed, then either leave or watch the rest of the reveals. Most of the other kids getting their class revealed got laborer classes like “Farmer,” and “Builder”, Crafting classes like “Carpenter”, or “Blacksmith”, or Martial classes like “Guard,” or “Warrior.” There were only two exceptions. The first one was a kid who I didn’t know, who turned out to be a Red Mage. She was ecstatic, and her parents were as well. The bespectacled little girl happily marched out of the building with her equally bespectacled parents following behind her.

The other was me.

I stepped up to the priest, a skinny, blind old man dressed in white robes, who put both of his hands on my head and conferred upon me the gift of the gods. He turned his sightless gaze to the heavens and called out, “Jewelsmith.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “Augmented with Savant! Congratulations my boy.” He lightly patted my head, and then I walked back to my mom.

All eyes were on me. Jewelsmith was quite an uncommon class. It was like a blacksmith, but with a specific emphasis on jewelry, making it quite a bit more niche. In addition, I had an augment. Augments are something that only happens to one out of every hundred-ish people, and they have effects on how the revealed class functions. Most are positive, but Savant is arguably the best augment one can receive. It increases the experience gained in your class by a certain multiplier, which differs between people. Savant is exceptionally rare, and only about 1 in 50,000~ish people receive it.

So, as my mom and I walked out, I opted to check out my new class. Simply by thinking about it, I could see my new status:

Florence: Jewelsmith 15

Augments: Savant 10x

Skills: Quality Modifier 2X

I almost tripped over myself as we walked down the stairs to the road. I’d been excited to get my class, so I spent a bunch of time researching different classes and augments, so I knew a bit about what I’d just received. The class is exactly the one I wanted, which is pretty common among children. I was also already level 15, as I'd already done some work as a Jewelsmith. Generally, the job you get is the one you either want or are best at, so getting jewelsmith wasn’t exactly surprising, but it was reassuring. The astounding thing was the Savant modifier. 10x? The book I read said that the highest possible was 5x. The priest likely hadn’t known what the modifier was, because if he did, he may well have had a heart attack. The modifier I have is literally double that of the legendary savants like the Blade Princess, or the Dragon Rider of Verz. Of course, it wasn’t for a martial class like theirs was, but still, 10x was definitely too high!

My mom was whistling a happy tune as we walked home, overjoyed at her son not only getting the class he wanted but a rare augment on top of that! What parent wouldn’t be proud?

“Jewelsmith? I guess I shoulda expected that.”

“Marcus! Would it kill you to be happy for him? And he’s a savant. Our boy is special!”

Through clenched teeth, he said, “I am happy for him. Good job son.”

“Stop gritting your teeth, Marcus.”

Yeah, my dad wasn’t especially happy. He’d long since given up on me, but I guess this was his last bit of hope being dashed out that I would become more manly. From that day on, I would be a Jewelsmith.

And what a Jewelsmith I was.

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