Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 102: What do you think?

Arwin stopped by the cart to hoist the large barrel of oil off and bring it over to his makeshift workshop. If Olive was surprised to see him lugging the huge container on his own, she didn’t say anything.

They walked past the remains of the smithy and over to the rickety house that was currently serving as his workshop. He held the door open for Olive, then let it swing shut behind them.

“This is… not exactly what I was expecting,” Olive hedged, turning to take in everything.

“It’s a work in progress.” Arwin put a hand on his anvil. “I made that armor in your hand here, and I’ll be able to do better once I’ve gotten the place a bit fixed up. Until then, do you really care where I work? Results are all that matter.”

“That’s true,” Olive said. “So how do we do this? I tested the armor out a bit. It’s definitely made for a man. Do I just tell you where it was uncomfortable?”

“It would be easier if you show me.”

“Figured,” Olive said. She reached to her side and fiddled with a strap for a few seconds to unravel a complicated looking knot. She gave it a sharp tug and her armor loosened instantly. Olive reached over her head and pulled the old armor off, setting it down before picking up the chestpiece that Arwin had forged and starting to pull it on.

“Do you–”

“No,” Olive snapped. “I don’t.”

Arwin nodded, falling silent again. Olive pulled the armor on herself and set about fastening it. She was surprisingly adept at putting it on, even without one of her hands. He was pretty sure she managed it faster than he would have with both hands.

“Okay. It’s on,” Olive said. She rapped her chest with two knuckles. “My chest is getting crushed, and the sides are a little too wide. I think it should fit well if you just do a little modification there.”

He walked in a circle around her, examining the armor. Olive’s assessment was right, but there were a few other problems that he was pretty sure he could fix without too much effort. The pauldrons were too wide for her shoulders and needed to be angled better to fit her body. On top of that, Olive was ever so slightly off balance.

I think the armor is a little bit too heavy for her. She’d probably adapt to it, but you don’t want to be adapting to anything when you’re heading into a dungeon. I should be able to take some weight off and redistribute it a bit better. Women don’t have the same center of gravity that men do.

“I see what I need to do,” Arwin said after a few seconds of studying the armor. He glanced around for something to mark it with – he didn’t want to rely on the Mesh and end up making the damn thing magical on accident. “Could you wait a second?”

Olive blinked, then shrugged. He stepped past her and headed over to the smithy, wiping some of the remaining soot off the ground and onto his hands. Once he’d gathered enough, he headed back over to rejoin her.

She watched him suspiciously as he drew some lines with soot to mark the locations that he needed to modify. Arwin took a step back to study his handiwork, then gave her a curt nod.

“That’s fine. You can take it off now.” Olive did as instructed. A minute later, she’d pulled everything off and set it back on the ground, taking care to avoid mistakenly smudging any of the lines Arwin had drawn. She sent him an expectant look.

“Now what?”

“Now you go wait outside,” Arwin said. “Or, better yet, go sit down in the tavern. This will take a little.”

“You aren’t going to measure my arm or something for the sword?” Olive asked, lifting her hand and waving it around. “Don’t you need to figure out the length of the blade that suits me or something?”

“I mean, I could.” Arwin tilted his head to the side and rubbed his chin. He still had absolutely no idea about the finer parts of smithing – or the considerably less fine parts, for that matter – but he’d been using weapons for as long as he could remember. He’d wielded everything from daggers to great-axes and knew how to use all of them at a competent level. “But I’ll be honest, it wouldn’t do much for me. Unless you’ve got a specific request, I was just going to make you a short sword.”

“Is there a reason?”

“Yeah.” Arwin nodded to Olive’s missing arm. “That, or the lack thereof. You aren’t going to be able to do just about anything with a heavy weapon. Your balance is off. What you need is something fast and light.”

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“Why not a dagger?”

Olive was testing him. That much was clear. He wasn’t sure why she’d waited until they’d already gotten here, but he didn’t care either way. The question was both reasonable and simple enough.

“Daggers aren’t going to be any good if you’re fighting someone that knows how to use a proper sword and if you don’t have the jump on them. You’re clearly not aiming to gut things from the shadows if you’re clanking around. A long sword, as I previously mentioned, would be too difficult for you to wield. That leaves something a bit longer than a dagger but shorter than a full length or hand-and-a-half blade. We could do a falchion, but those are a little heavier than a short sword because their blade is wider. Thus, short sword. Satisfied?”

“Yeah. That’s fair logic,” Olive said with a nod. She picked up her armor and handed it to Arwin. “When can I expect everything to be done?”

Arwin shrugged in response. “The armor modifications won’t take me all that long, but the sword will add a fair amount of time to that. I’d look into getting somewhere to stay for the night.”

A grimace passed over Olive’s features. Her hand shifted back to the pouch at her side before she could stop it. “Right. I’ll see what I can do. Tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Arwin confirmed. If she didn’t have any money left, he suspected Lillia would find a way to accommodate for her. Offering more for free likely wouldn’t have done anything more than offend the warrior – and there was a limit to how much he could offer up. The tavern was Lillia’s, not his.

Olive nodded to him and headed out the door. Arwin waited until he’d heard the sound of her footsteps fade down the street before he turned to his hearth and tossed [Soul Flame] into it. He got to working all the leather padding out of the armor, removing the strips carefully and setting them down safely. After them followed the non-metal parts of the latches that held everything together.

Once the chestpiece had been stripped back down to its bare metal, Arwin took the pieces of the armor and set them into the flame to heat. The flame soon brought it to a wheat yellow. He brought the armor over to his anvil. Verdant Blaze formed in his hand and he worked the metal with firm but controlled strikes.

Time slipped away as it had tended to do as of late. He made the modifications to Olive’s armor without any difficulty and put the whole set back together, letting it rest at his side while he got to work on the sword.

He had a lot of Brightsteel to work with. It wasn’t exactly the best steel for making an entire blade. Its main property was its ability to absorb shock, not its hardness or aptitude for holding an edge.

Still, for my purposes right now, this should be more than enough. It’ll probably need sharpening more than other blades and isn’t going to be quite as sharp. I doubt either of those problems are going to be too big of an inconvenience for Olive as long as the sword functions well.

Arwin heated an ingot of Brightsteel to a dull orange. He brought it back to his anvil and started working it out into a flat sheet. He brushed away the black hammerscale that formed as he worked it, the heartbeat of his hammer thumping rhythmically through the building.

He soon had the steel worked out and formed into the rough shape of the blade. His concentration built as time swirled past him. The metal took the form of a sword, growing closer to a true weapon with every passing hour.

The temperature outside the smithy started to lower as the night dragged on. Arwin barely took notice. The heat of his [Soul Flame] was all he needed to keep working.

He finished the blade, quenched it in oil and cleaned it off once more, then set to work making a handle. Arwin opted for a metal grip and dug grips into it with the edge of his [Scourge] empowered fingertips.

After testing the handle to make sure the grip was sturdy, Arwin worked it onto the tang and capped it with a pommel that he worked onto the end with a mixture of heat and empowered strength.

He held the blade up before him, nodding to himself. It was definitely coming together well. The edges of the blade had needed more hammering than he was used to. But, after spending at least an extra hour than normal to make sure it was hard, Arwin was satisfied. There was only one thing left he had to do.

He headed back to the cart and retrieved the whetstone that he’d bought. As he worked on bringing a proper edge to the blade, Arwin smiled to himself. For a non-magical weapon, he was pretty proud of it. The sword was one of the first weapons that he’d made entirely himself. The Mesh hadn’t been involved in the slightest.

He’d have been lying if he claimed that the sword was the best weapon he’d ever made. It really wasn’t all that incredible in the grand scheme of things. But, for the price he’d asked and the risk he was taking on it, he felt that the result was more than acceptable.

Arwin brushed the blade off and set the whetstone down. Sharpening the blade had taken nearly as much time as actually forging it. He wasn’t sure if that was a property of the Brightsteel or if he just wasn’t very good at sharpening things. He retrieved the finished armor and walked over to the door, pushing it open to step out into the street.

The blade was done – and the sun had started to rise over the horizon. He’d been at it the entire night.

At least, I hope that it was just one night. It would be bad if I promised Olive that I’d be done in a day and then took two. [The Hungering Maw] doesn’t seem like it’s being too much of a pain right now, so it definitely hasn’t been too long. I should look into making a new emergency bracelet, though. Those have been incredibly helpful. Maybe I can get around to that after I send Olive on her way.

Olive wasn’t anywhere on the street that Arwin could see, so he headed down the street and over to the tavern. As he’d guessed, she was sitting at the counter. A plate sat before her, polished off some time ago. Her eyes were drooping with either boredom or weariness, but she sat upright as Arwin entered.

“That was faster than I thought,” Olive said, sliding out of her chair. “You finished?”

Arwin handed the finished sword over to her in response. He held onto the armor so she didn’t have to try to juggle both the armor and the weapon with one hand. Olive took it from him and raised it before her, testing the weight and balance.

“Well?” Arwin asked, a flicker of trepidation passing through him. The sword was the first weapon he’d given to anyone outside of his own guild, not to mention the lack of guidance the Mesh had given him. “What do you think?”