The forge had been quieter than usual for the last few days. No big orders, no rchant caravans stopping by, and the old man had spent most of the mornings tinkering with his private projects instead of the usual repair work.
During the past 3 days his belief that he had first suspected seed to be true, the dallion could be the key. The thought had gnawed at him relentlessly, to the point where he’d barely been able to focus at the forge. Even the sound of hamrs ringing against tal felt like it was tapping the sa maddening question into his skull: What’s behind that door?
Today, opportunity finally presented itself.
Eron had noticed sothing today. Whenever the old man thought no one was looking, he would glance toward the road and then back at the forge door, almost as if waiting for soone. That soone arrived today.
Late afternoon sunlight slanted across the cobblestone road when the heavy creak of carriage wheels reached their ears. Eron straightened instinctively, hamr still in hand, and saw a rchant’s wagon rolling into view, drawn by two sturdy chestnut horses.
The old man’s face lit up, not with the warm welco of an old friend, but with the relief of a man finally seeing sothing he’d been waiting on. He shrugged off his heavy blacksmith’s cloak, revealing the thin tunic beneath. And that’s when Eron saw it, gleaming faintly in the low light—the dallion.
It wasn’t just a trinket. Up close, Eron could see its edge was finely ridged, almost like gear teeth, and its center had an engraving that matched the faint circular marking near the edge of the forbidden wall at the house. The mont he saw that, his chest tightened.
’It is the sa magical ingraving that the wall has got on it’s center. This must be the key to opening it."
It wasn’t really all that flashy. Bronze, maybe, with an unusual interlocking swirl etched deep into its face. But what caught Eron’s attention was its shape. It wasn’t quite circular—one side had a subtle taper, almost like it was ant to slide into sothing.
’Hmm! This seems like the thing i need.’
The old man stepped outside to greet the rchant, his voice gruff but warr than Eron had ever heard it. The two began talking about shipnts, prices, and routes while Eron pretended to clean the workbench. He kept glancing out, morizing how the dallion hung from the man’s neck, how it caught the light, and most importantly, how easy it would be to slip it off if given the chance.
The mont he was waiting for ca quicker than expected. The rchant’s assistant called the old man over to check a cart axle, and the old man handed his cloak to the boy minding the forge, the dallion draped over it. A perfect, stupidly careless move.
Eron’s pulse thundered in his ears. Now was the ti to take advantage of the situation.
He moved casually, too casually, past the cloak, his fingers brushing against the fabric as if straightening it. In a single smooth motion, he removed the dallion, slid it into the inner pocket of his apron, and kept walking toward the back where the scrap tal was stored.
No one noticed. Not the old man. Not the rchant. Not the assistant.
’Seems like no one noticed pocketing the dallion."
For the rest of the afternoon, Eron worked like nothing had happened, but every clang of the hamr was just a way to drown out the pounding in his chest.
When dusk finally bled into night and the forge was locked, the old man headed toward the tavern with the rchant—sothing about catching up over ale. Eron made his own excuses and slipped away in the opposite direction... only to circle back once the street was empty.
"Kid, I will be going with him to catch up. You make sure to clean up the place, all right!’
"Okie, old man."
’Seems like today is my lucky day. He is going on his own no need to do anything.’
The old man’s house lood in the dim torchlight—quiet, almost expectant. Eron slipped inside through the side door they sotis used for unloading iron ingots.
The air slled faintly of soot and oil, but beneath it was that other sll, one that had haunted him since the first day he stepped in here—old wood and sothing faintly tallic, like a forge that hadn’t been used in decades but never truly cooled.
He made his way to that wall. The one with the magical ingravings on its side. He’d examined it dozens of tis in his head, morizing every crack, every irregularity. Tonight, he traced his fingers along the edge until he found it, a thin, vertical slot no wider than the dallion’s tapered edge.
His breath caught. This was it.
"OK, Eron, this is it. This is the mont you have been waiting for so many days, finally you get to know what that old man’s hiding."
He pulled the dallion from his pocket, turning it over in the dim light. Up close, the swirling design seed almost to shift, the grooves deeper than they should have been, as if carved by sothing other than human tools.
The forbidden door stood at the end, plain and unremarkable except for the magical ingravings in the stone wall. He drew the dallion from his pocket and pressed its edge into the groove. It fit perfectly.
A soft click.
The wall panel slid open just enough for him to twist the dallion, and with a muted grinding sound, the door itself unlocked. His pulse roared in his ears.
Eron pushed the door open.
The sll hit him first—cool, tallic, and faintly old, like air that hadn’t been disturbed for years. His eyes adjusted to the dim interior, and then.....
He gasped.
He felt sothing click—soft, deliberate, like the first movent of a lock giving way. The wall gave the faintest tremor, a whisper of grinding stone echoing from deep within.
And then—
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