The next morning, the slaves woke up as normal, Jas included. However, as Jas headed towards the slter, he felt a hand grip his shoulder. "Where do you think you're going." the older boy with the grey eyes challenged him.
"I was told to make a new slter." Jas replied.
The boy glared at him silently. He knew that Jas had been put on slter duty permanently, and that Jas was a smith.
"If you're lying, you'll regret it." he threatened Jas.
"I'm not!" Jas said back.
"Fine then." the older boy turned and headed into the mine with the rest.
Jas spent the next couple hours pulling stones that looked workable out of the waste pile that spilled down the side of the mountain next to the camp. One of the overseers eventually ca by and Jas asked for a hamr and chisel to try to get the stones into a more workable shape, and was surprised when he actually got them. He managed to get the stones into a more workable brick-like shape, and by the end of the day had a decent amount of material to work with. The second day passed much like the first, and on the third day he started constructing the actual slter. The previous slter had wasted a lot of fuel as heat escaped, leading to a poor final product. The slter Jas constructed was better insulated, and he also made a stone mold for creating earthen molds for the iron ingots, making the final products much more regular.
During this ti, the iron ore from the mine had been piling up. The first night Jas had used the old slter until an overseer stopped him. "Yer building a new slter, yeah? Just save it until it's finished." he said. At mid-day on the fifth day of his work, Jas was finished with the construction and started testing it out. It worked as well as he had expected, running much hotter and producing higher quality, more regular iron ingots.
In fact, the new slter was almost too good. It ran much hotter, which wasn't a big problem for Jas with his Smith's [Heat Resistance], but only two other slaves had the [Heat Resistance] skill due to their mage class being fire-focused. Even the overseers generally couldn't get close when the new slter was operating. Jas was worried about this at first, but when he ran through half the built up ore before dinner just during his testing, the whip-using slaver was most pleased.
He cuffed Jas on the back of the head. "Well done, Smith." He gestured at the iron ingots Jas had produced during his testing. "Finish up the rest of that ore and then you're back in the mines starting tomorrow."
Because the slting process was much faster, Jas was generally able to finish all the slting within an hour or two each night. However, because the new slter ran much hotter than the old one, only those slaves with a heat resistance skill could operate it, and only Jas with his [Slting] skill could operate the slter at full efficiency. For the next few weeks, Jas would mine with the other slaves, and then slt all the ore himself after dinner. Thanks to the buffs to his strength and endurance from his Smith class, he was able to keep up with the heavier workload than the rest of the slaves. Then, the overseers pulled him aside again. This ti, they wanted him to start repairing the mining tools. There were broken chisels, shovels, and pickaxes in a pile, though Jas didn't know where they had co from. In fact, now that he thought about it, he didn't know where the tools were stored at all. He'd been so beat down and focused on his work that he'd never thought about it. Why think about where the tools are when you're more worried about avoiding the lash and when you can rest even another mont?
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In any case, every single one of the tools in the pile was beyond basic repairs. They would all need to be reforged, or they'd just break again right away.
"Th-these tools all need to be r-r-reforged, sirs…" Jas said hesitantly, preparing to be hit.
"Yeah, duh." one slaver said.
"That's why we're telling you to do it, Smith." another growled.
The whip-user nodded. "That's right, so reforge 'em." he directed.
"Is, is there a forge I can use?" Jas asked. The whip-user cuffed him over the head.
"Idjit, d'you see a forge just lying about? Make one. You got five days to fix all these tools. 'Til then, you're outta the mines again." He then turned and yelled over his shoulder. "Kev!"
The grey-eyed boy scurried out of the lean-to. "Yes boss?" he said.
"The Smith's outta the mine for the next five days. Don't be giving him crap, he's fixing your tools for you. Ain't that nice o' him? Thank him."
The grey eyed boy turned to Jas with a blank expression. "Thank you Smith." he said without inflection.
"Good, good!" the whip-user nodded. "Now get back to bed."
The boy scurried away as fast as he'd co. The slaver turned back to Jas.
"Build your forge, and when you're ready to start fixing tools, get em from Coin here." he gestured to the overseer who usually collected the iron ore in the evening and took it to who knows where every week or so.
"Yes sir." Jas said.
The overseer nad Coin then stretched a hand over the pile of broken tools and in a flash they disappeared. Peddlers and traveling rchants often have such skills for the transportation of rchandise, although Jas had never seen this before.
"Uh, sirs…" Jas said, as the slavers turned to leave.
"What?" one growled.
"I, uh, I'll need iron to make an anvil…"
The slavers glanced at one another, then looked at the slaver nad Coin.
"Hrmmm…" he groaned. "Output's gonna be low enough with him not mining as it is…"
"What if he just mines it out himself?" one suggested.
"As long as he still finishes in five days, I guess. Any longer than that and…"
"You hear that, Smith?" The whip-using slaver interrupted. "You can mine your own iron for your own use, but you still have to be done in five days. Or else." he threatened with a dangerous smile on his face.
Jas gulped and nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'll mine it myself. Five days. Got it."
"Good, good!" The slaver chortled, and they all left back to their section of camp.
Jas was just glad they hadn't beaten him for asking for iron for himself.
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