Once they reached the area of town with all the shops, Benjamin gave Sophia instructions on where she could find the Barber, and she hurried over there alone to meet Kim if possible. And while she was doing that, Benjamin, Benji, Katy, and Sean made their way to Benjamin's friend, a jeweler. He wanted to get a little bit of inspiration for the accessories he would be making in the game, and the best place for that was the one and only luxury jeweler in the whole town.
When the four of them reached the door, Benjamin rang the bell so that the door would be unlocked, a security measure so that it wasn't easy to storm in there with a gun or something like that. He was then happily received by a middle-aged older man that sadly didn't manage to attend the barbecue the other day while being someone that Benjamin would have loved to see there.
"Ah, Benjamin! How nice it is to see you!" He exclaimed with a bright smile as he came up from behind the counter and gave his friend a hand, "What brings you here today?"
With a smile, Benjamin nodded his head at the man and smiled. "Nice to see you as well, Jordan. I just wanted to take a look at what you have here, and maybe get a few new rings for my beard, or some new earrings as well." Benjamin explained, before then moving his body to the side to reveal his two grandsons and his granddaughter.
"And I of course also wanted to introduce you to some of my grandchildren." The old man said with a slight grin before this sentence seemed to spark some flame in Jordan's eyes.
"Your Grandchildren, I see? That reminds me, I don't know if you've heard, but my grandson just finished high school at the top of his class." Jordan chuckled before Benjamin formed a grin on his face and smiled back. "Interesting… Then maybe he's nearly as good as my Benji here, he finished with a perfect GPA."
Benjamin bragged before the fight of overly-loving grandfathers seemed to escalate, and sparks seemed to fly around in between the two men's eyes before Jordan returned with his trump card.
"Congratulations, Benji. Maybe I should introduce you to my Jake then. You seem pretty athletic, so maybe he can teach you a thing or two about Martial Arts? He just won the semi-nationals in a Taekwondo competition." With this quick attack that Jordan seemed to want to hide by talking to Benji instead of Benjamin himself, he seemed to have done a good bit of damage, although only if Benjamin hadn't been prepared for that.
"Haha, yes, Benji is pretty athletic. He's the star of his football team and received many personal scholarship offers. A few major-league teams even offered to pick him up and train him to become a front-line player, even though he only just got out of high school." After this counter, even Jordan seemed unsure of what to do, and using that short stumble; Benjamin chose to finish him off once and for all!
"Oh, and that reminds me… He got a few full scholarships, and despite his obvious talents in football, he is now going to study in San Francisco for a few years to become a Game Developer. That is because Benji doesn't care about things like fame, even at his young age, and only wants to do what his heart tells him to do." Benjamin said with a wide smile, letting Jordan do nothing but figuratively, although it wouldn't have been the first time that he would do this literally, kneel in front of Benjamin to admit defeat.
"That's truly impressive, yes… Erm, anyway, nice to finally meet you three. As I'm sure you've noticed, we casually talk about our grandchildren every once in a while." Jordan said with a smile as he leaned down toward Sean and Katy, while Benji was staring blankly into the air, trying to figure out what the hell was 'casual' about what just happened. "And you two must be Katherin and Sean then, huh?" He asked before Katy quickly nodded her head.
"Yup, I'm the glorious Katherin! Bow to me, peasant!" She yelled out with her arms in the air before Benjamin slapped his face before turning to his friend. "Sorry, we were on a trip yesterday, and she was watching Alice in Wonderland in the car on the way back. She was infatuated with the Queen of Hearts…" He explained, before Jordan returned a grin. "Oh, ~? Quite a vivid imag-"
It was quite clear that Jordan just wanted to start something again, but Benjamin didn't let him. "Oi, no starting again! You lost the round for today!" The old man protested, and Jordan looked away and clicked his tongue, while Benji sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting area with his face in his hands, muttering something to himself, "So they were aware it was a competition after all..?"
"Anyway, Jordan. Let's move on. You've got some of the rings I asked you to order, right?" Benjamin asked his friend, who swiftly nodded and made his way back behind the counter, grabbing a box from one of the displays. "Here they are. You wanted to have some serpent-like decorations, right?" Jordan inquired one last time before Benjamin swiftly nodded his head.
"Yes, exactly. Can I take a closer look?" Benjamin asked, and once Jordan nodded, he took one of the different rings with a smile. He used to make these kinds of things himself back in the day, but he hasn't been doing that for quite a while, even before his accident.
Benjamin loved the things that he made himself, and Jordan actually sold some of them back in the day when he first opened the Jeweler. But for the most part, Benjamin liked to wear artistic, decorative things, which his rings and earrings were to him, that he didn't make, but instead bought from high-quality providers.
After all, Benjamin was best with his hands and not necessarily with his head. Of course, he was able to come up with great designs if he tried, but since direct art like this wasn't his primary focus, Eisen knew that many things looked a lot better at least visually than what he could make. Some of those things were small decorations like such accessories.
So, Benjamin didn't try to pretend he was a better artist than others, because he wasn't, and chose to be a consumer rather than a provider at least when it came to accessories. That's precisely why he wanted to visit this Jewelers to gain some ideas or inspiration. Although in the end, he was probably still going to ask Evalia for some help with the designs if necessary.
"Oh, these are actually dragons, huh?" Benjamin pointed out as he took a closer look at one of the rings meant for his beard, and Jordan swiftly nodded his head.
"Mhm, they look pretty nice, don't they? I know you like simple designs, so I didn't show them to you right off the bat, but there are also some fitted with jewels. They actually aren't that noticeable though, meaning they aren't the overwhelming centerpiece, but just a small part of the big picture. Here's one of them with nice, emerald eyes." Jordan explained as he took out another box, showing Benjamin a version of a ring similar to the one he was currently holding, except with two small gems replacing the eyes.
"Hmm, interesting! Thanks, that's a big help! But I'll rather take these simple ones after all. Oh, and could you give me a new tunnel-piece for my ear? Mine isn't in great condition anymore." Benjamin explained as he showed Jordan his ear, before the other old man took a quick look and nodded, albeit slightly confused what kind of help he just gave Benjamin.
"Yes, of course. Do you want the same old black ones? We do have a few super-light carbon ones that are ornate as well if you're interested." Jordan explained, but Benjamin swiftly shook his head. "That's fine, and I don't need anything special right now. I'll look into it in a little bit though. Keep some reserved, if possible. I'll come back in a few days."
Benjamin explained, while Jordan nodded his head and swiftly made his way to the back to grab some tunnel-earings of the same size, color, and type as the ones that Benjamin had before now, while Benjamin took a closer look at the rings. He got a few ideas about the accessories he could make.
For example, he already knew about things like storage rings, which worked by fitting Spatial Gems into a ring with some enchantments. If that were a thing, then there would surely be some other gems or crystals with interesting properties like that. If he could place some of them into the rings, he had in his beard, or maybe even his earrings, then that would most assuredly be a good time to do so.
As for the tunnel-earrings, he was somewhat unsure of what he should do in real life as well as in-game. In the game world, he currently wore no kind of accessory on him, which included the tunnels. He would first need to find someone that could give him those tunnels anyway, and then he wanted to try out different ornate versions of tunnels in the game.
The issue with them in real life was that you couldn't, or rather shouldn't, use tunnels that are too heavy, as that would stretch your earlobe out too much. But in the game, where stats were a thing, that probably wasn't the case to the same extent. And even then, it would most probably naturally heal if Benjamin took the tunnels out for a little while.
Considering that Benjamin preferred metal accessories over synthetic ones like super-light carbon, especially when they became decorations, he wanted to let his fantasies run wild in the game world instead of real life. He still liked the way the small tunnels looked on him, however, so Benjamin always kept a few regular, black tunnels in his ears all the time, they were just quite boring if one took a closer look at them.
A little while after these thoughts, Jordan came back with two new tunnels, before leaning in and setting them into Benjamin's ears once he noticed that the old man's hand was in a bandage, inspecting the other ear-piercings that Benjamin had.
"Do you want to replace any of these as well?" Jordan asked, noticing that these were just completely blank metal rings for the most part before Benjamin shook his head. "Not yet. Maybe later, right now I'd just like to buy some new rings for my beard." Benjamin told his friend, who swiftly nodded and went over the different prices of the particular items that he was interested in, on top of discussing how well which rings fit together with each other as well as how they came together to form the whole picture.
In the end, Benjamin spend quite a hefty sum on these rings, although it wasn't like he couldn't afford it. After they walked out of the Jeweler with these new accessories, Katy holding Benjamin's hand and Sean holding Benji's, Benji looked up at his grandfather with a whistle. "I never noticed how many accessories like that you actually have. Although, why do you only have ear-piercings, and no piercings anywhere else?" He asked, before Benjamin just shrugged.
"I tried a septum out once, but I didn't like it. And it got in the way all the time when I was wearing masks for woodworking. My earrings and beard-rings at least don't get in the way that much, so I've kept them. And I got used to them after a while, so why not?" The old man laughed before Benji shrugged with a smile as he imagined his grandfather with a bull-like nosering, inevitably joining his grandfather's laughter.