Landar
As the family was cooking and putting the finishing touches on dinner, I found myself absorbed in my work.
The forge fire burned hot as I pushed the billowes as hard as I could. The tal on the antlers was heavily infused with mana, and it would require more than re flas to make them lt into a usable form.
The forge wasnt large by any ans, with just enough room inside for a small iron anvil, the billows, a sand pit, and a workbench that held all the tools I had painstakingly recreated over the last four years. Largely through trial and error, but also through careful questioning of the dwarven smiths the Farr had business with from ti to ti.
His land was rocky, filled with flinty ore of various kinds. It wasnt high enough quality for most human smiths to touch, but for so reason the dwarves found the stuff useful from ti to ti. Trading pelts, leather, and tools for it on multiple occasions during the last five years id been here.
As soon as the fire was hot enough to where I thought it had a good chance of lting the tal, I grabbed my tongues and shoved the antlers into the burning red hot coals at the small furnaces heart. Then, I stared into the flas watching for the color in the antlers to shift. Its been a long ti. I said to the crackling coals. Ive gotten stronger since then, grown a lot.
The antlers were reaching a fine orange coloring, and I saw small sparks of multi-colored mana leap off the hottest parts of the fire.
Perfect.
I pulled the antlers out, and lifted the small rune inscribed hamr I had created. It wasnt heavy, but it was solid. As it landed on the antlers, the bone broke like glass. Turning to ash. While the tal took on a new flattened shape.
As the color began shifting to a darker hue, I shoved the tal back into the coals and reheated it. Then, back onto the small anvil, and more ti with the hamr.
Finally, after three or four passes the impurities were gone, and the tal was in the correct shape. A long thin chisel bit. I added so mana into the mixture as I doused it in oil. Allowing the tal to absorb the mana infused minerals.
I then took it to the work bench, and sat at the small stone seat. Then, with my feet moving rhythmically, I got the grindstone moving faster and faster. I brought the would be tool, little more then a general shape at this point, down onto the stone and began shaping it.
Sparks flew everywhere, and the thick gloves I had put on protected my skin from the worst of it. Not that such weak sparks could leave permanent scars on anymore. Not after so much had happened.
Finally, it was shaped, infused, and ready for the last stage of the work. I slowed the grined stone and retrieved my own set of small chisels. Much like the ones the Smith back ho had helped craft, but these were much better quality given the ti and opportunity to refine the design I had had over the last five years.
Lets see, I pulled a small leather booklet from off a shelf and began pursuing my rune designs. I had them in my journal wiki, but I always felt looking at the actual designs sohow more informative.
I had picked up several more runes from the dwarves over the years. Without their knowledge of course. Learning the physical and magical properties of them through small glimpses, and ogling their wears at the yearly market the few tis they had set up stalls. I had also almost blown myself and the house up more than once trying to painstakingly recreate each one.
I smiled at the mories, and just how close I had co to killing myself over the years.
Instead of just three or four runes that I had been given by the Woodcutters clan when I was twelve, I now had nearly twenty. I pulled out a small piece of parchnt, scraps I had picked up from town here and there as people threw away what they thought couldnt be used anymore, and began drawing with a white chalk pencil my intended design.
A knock ca at the door and I stopped what I was doing and looked up. I found an older woman, dium height with a face and beauty that had long abandoned true youth, and instead embraced a more mature aspect.
Hello love.
Hi Wilma, I smiled and wiped the sweat from my brow.
Working hard are we? I nodded. Good. Well, I hope youve worked up an apatite. The family has made a right feast of it tonight. I even broke out the sweets for the littles. The darlings are beside themselves, and just dying to start digging in. So, when do you think youll join us love?
Her accent was thicker than most others from the area, probably due to her family being one of the more well established.
Not long now. I have the design, and I'm just about to put it into the tal. Then ill be in. Fifteen minutes, at most.
Wilma frowned. She was expecting to put the work project aside and co in now, as was proper. She was just being polite about it.
It's important, I promise.
Her eyebrows went up. And this important piece of tal work couldnt have waited until after dinner?
My stomach betrayed and growled like an angry beast.
Uh, well, yes maam. If Im going to join Farr tomorrow on his trip, then I need to get to bed right after dinner. Which leaves no ti for this. I promise. Fifteen minutes, and no more.
She nodded, clearly displeased then left to my work.
I quickly drew the design onto the tal with the chaulk. Outlining where id be leaving the design. It was a simple one, but if I wanted it to be as easy to use as I did, it had to be perfect.
The first strike rang like a bell, and the world seed to resonate with the strike of my rune inscribed hamr on the specialized chisel I had made years ago. I poured as much mana into the strike, and the tal I was working as I thought the substance could handle. Then, I shifted the chisel, and hit it again.
Again and again reality seed to warp around the place where the chisel t the tal every ti the hamr ca down. It was a potent, if sowhat localized effect. Very powerful, over a very small space. I had to wait until the aftereffects of the distortion dissipated before I could move the chisel and begin the next part of the design. Every strike required more waiting, more patience, more ti.
Finally, I rang the bell one last ti and the chisel carved a small divot into the magically infused copper finishing the design.
I lifted the finished product and examined my work. Perfect, now. For the finishing touch.
I moved over to a small pot of tin I had left heating in the furnace as it died. The tin was molten and the coals while cooling, were still hot enough to keep it so. The runes inscribed in the iron cast helped it resist the heat of the furnace by transferring it with greater efficiency to the tal it held inside.
Smiling at the mory of a thousand broken prototypes and a very angry Wilma when I had used her kitchen pots as test subjects, I retrieved the Tin. I used a thin heat resistant rod I had made a few months ago to transfer the tin directly into the design, and clean away excess.
When that was finished, it was one last pass on the grind stone to smooth out the design, a quick polish with mana infused oil, and finally the work was finished.
I pulled a lever by the furnace that vented the heat directly into the ground behind the forge. If anyone was standing there, all theyd feel would be their shoes warming up by a few degrees for a few seconds. But the design had saved from nearly killing myself over a dozen tis over during my experintation using the sa basic heat transfer runes as the cast iron pot I had created did. Simply shunting the excess energy away into another dium.
Finding a clean rag, I wiped the excess oil away as I left the forge, and headed towards the house. The mont I was outside I felt several sets of eyes on . I tried to dodge, but half a dozen buckets of cold water splashed over before I could so much as activate my Dash ability.
The kids giggled as they ran for all they were worth towards the house. Momma said you slled, and that we should give you a bath. Aribell said with a beaming smile. She was the only one not to run, being too young to really understand the mischief the others had talked her into participating in.
Sighing, I nodded. Thank you for your help Aribell.
Youre welco! She cheerily led back towards the house, and the sll of an intoxicating feast.
***
The feast was, chaotic. To say the least. When you put nearly twenty people in a single room, eating at two long tables, all wanting to talk at the sa ti, and all wanting to hear the news from town, or the story of the day's hunt at the sa ti? Loud would be considered an adequate, if lackluster descriptor.
Eventually Farr got everyone's attention and even the little kids squird a bit quieter so they could hear their family patriarch speak.
The boy and will be going to the capital for a few days, he said over a mug of watered down ale. A rare luxury out here in the middle of nowhere. So of the kids began complaining, asking or demanding to go but he raised a hand and brought it down on the table with a hard thump. Silencing the dissent. I wont be haven no belly aching or gain saying! Not in my house! Now, the boy and will be leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early just as I said. Well be traveling in rough weather, over broken road. Its dangerous, and treacherous, and I aint haven none of you little ones along. Understand ?
Heads nodded all along the childrens table, and I saw smiles from the mothers and fathers in the room. They all knew Farr was all bark and very little bite. The smile he gave the room when they finally settled down reassured them all he was proud of all of them.
Good. Now, im told that our little Landar has cooked up another of his little tal work gadgets. Is that right boy? He looked at , and I smiled.
Yes sir.
Well, dont hold us in suspense. What did you make this ti?
And how long will it last? asked one of the teenage children. The jibe elicited snickers from almost everyone, including most of the adults. I smiled myself. I had after all had many failures in my early rune carving days on the farm. Over heating pots, pans that shattered rather then hardened, knives with a perpetually dull edge rather then a sharp one, and so on.
But with each experint I had kept the finished products for myself. Now that I was leaving, and probably wouldnt be returning if things went according to plan, I felt it was the perfect ti to leave the working trinkets to those that could use them.
I stood, and pulled the small cloth aside revealing my latest work. It was a long blade, with a hook on one end. The family wooed and awed at it, as it was a bright and polished brass color thanks to the minerals and mana I had inlaid it with.
That is a beautiful cooking knife, Wilma said, as I handed it over. But will it hold up long? My last one was good steel and it only lasted three years.
I smirked and turned the blade over, revealing the delicately cut runes inlaid with tin that was polished to an almost silver like shine. Shell hold an edge for a long while. Youll probably be able to gift her to your great grand daughters and sons one day.
Wilma was greatful clearly, but the skeptical look she gave only made the reality of the situation that much better. Looks like dwarven work. But pretty symbols dont an spit if it wasnt done with dwarven skill.
She wasnt being an, this was a lesson. Weather to , or to her other kids I wasnt sure. But from her tone she was still skeptical. More than one scoundrel copied their pretty designs, and they didnt work half as well as plane steel. You have to watch out for hucksters. She t my eyes then. Not that I think youre one of those louts. Thank you for the gift boy. It ans a lot, even if it wont last too long.
I couldnt help but smile as I handed over the blade, and pressed my thumb against the central rune. That little pressure created enough static energy to activate the rune, and pull the natural reserves of mana that the deer antlers held to the surface.
The blade glowed a slight white in the candle and fire light.
Oh, boy. This . . . what does it do? Everyone, including the adults clamored for a better view of the kitchen utensil. This glow I an?
When active it sharpens the edge all on its own. Now, it needs a bit of energy from say, the sun and other natural elents to recharge. But once a day you just press this button, and itll sharpen and repair itself of any minor nicks or bends. Everyone was enthralled by it. Press this other design when the first is active, and the blade heats up. I put my finger on the lower rune and suddenly the very cutting edge of the blade visibly heated to a faintly brighter color. Perfect for cutting bread for breakfast. This you can do for about five minutes a day.
Wilmas expression shifted from confused, to awestruck, to mildly annoyed, and then finally so realization hit her and tears filled her eyes. She gook the blade and walked it into the kitchen. While she was gone the other family mbers all asked questions and if I could make them sothing similar, or so variation on the item.
When she returned, she pulled into a hug and whispered into my ear. Thank you boy. But this better not be the last ti I see you.
My heart swelled, and the pain of my decision hit like a ton of bricks. She didnt know what I was doing, or why. But she had clearly put enough together to know I wasnt planning on coming back soon. For a mont, I almost reconsidered.
Perhaps going peacefully, letting the Farr introduce as an eligible bachelor, and embracing the true purpose of the trip would be enough. Perhaps, I could finally fully embrace the new life I had built out here in the middle of nowhere with this hard working family.
But the mory of my mother and father fighting desperately to keep the blue knight and his goons from getting to , of them sacrificing themselves for my sake was seared into my mind. The thought of Tabitha, and her inevitable fate and the injustice of it had my rage simring even here.
I rembered the bag I had hidden in my workshop, filled with what I hoped would be the instrunts of my vengeance, and my heart stilled.
Ill do my best. Dont worry, well be as safe as we can be, I lied and returned the hug as genuinely as I could. I couldnt help but feel like a liar.
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