Standing in the doorway of the modest size blacksmith work shop, Reese found himself almost entranced at all the items and tools about in the space. It was reminiscent of what he’d imagine a blacksmith’s shop in the wild west might look like. Tools along the wall glistened and twinkled as flames from the small forge glowed and danced over the metallic surface. Several large workshop tables held various metal works in various stages of completion, mostly items from around the castle. The tables themself looked strangely like the one they put in his room, and small marks on the floor near an appropriately sized empty spot suggested where his own might have come from.
But it was the very center that held probably the two most impressive things, a large anvil which was currently being worked on by a dark elf woman. The dark elf Annsa glared up from the metal rings she was hammering out. Her shoulder length silver hair was singed by the heat of working around hot metals. It contrasted sharply with her almost black, yet still blue iris, “Didn’t I tell you to go away the last time?” Her voice had a sort of twang to it, like what he might have expect from a person with a ‘southern accent’ back on his earth.
“I know, and I’m sorry. But I really need to use the forge. I don’t have to use it right this minute I’m happy to wait until you’re done for the day. Sneacta said it was ok, if I could convince you.” Despite Reese’s begging Annsa seemed unmoving.
“Well you can’t, so go on then.” The dark elf woman left no room for interpretation, she did not want him there.
Standing in the doorway of the forge for just a little longer, Reese tried to think of an excuse, any excuse, but the harden stoned face of the grizzled blacksmith left no room for debate. With a dejected nod, he turned to leave the forge. He’d have to think of some other option. Smelting gold in his room didn’t seem at all viable even with a low melting point metal like gold. Maybe he could find a space elsewhere in the castle, or just outside it.
“Wait boy.” The dark elf woman whispered something else under her breath that he couldn’t quite hear, but seemed like a swear of some kind. “Lady Sneacta gave you her permission?”
Seeing the opening Reese rushed in practically begging. “Yes! So did Beeson, but I know Sneacta is in charge of the castle grounds. I promise I won’t be in your way.”
The dark elf woman laid the hammer she had on top of the anvil with subtle clang. Though it was gentile, it still seemed as if there was more force there than needed. Her glare at him, showed more than a bit of annoyance at his continued presence there. “Before you came here, they said you might be interested in using my workshop. I said no, didn’t want no good for nothing kids running around here. Lady Sneacta said she was fine with that. So, why should I change my mind. Do you even have any experience smiting?”
“Well, not that much. Just the occasional small project.” Reese’s eye quickly lit up as he felt a surge of energy like he hadn’t felt since he last talked to Emilly, “But with a real forge I had some ideas that-“ An energy that was quickly quenched by a burned and scared right hand.
“Let me stop you right there boy. This ain’t no forge, it’s a blacksmith’s workshop. I got some ovens for forging but they’re limited, can’t make any fancy alloy, just reheat them. It worries me a bit you don’t know the difference. These tools I have aren’t mine and they’re expensive. If you can’t use them right, you’ll damage them. That will cost my employees a lot of coin. The Vallhorns put a lot of trust in me so I’m not inclined to do that.”
Standing there his mind raced as he thought about how he could convince her, then it hit him. An example! “It’s not much, but can show you some of what I did?”
With a short nod, the dark elf huffed, “Ha. Alright, but if I ain’t impressed you’ll leave and won’t come asking again?”
It was a harsh penalty for failure. Sudden memories of the last dark elf he dealt with who also tested him like this, caused a fear to well up inside. But, no! He wouldn’t let that fear win, this was a chance! Likely the only one he had.
In his room he considered the mess of experiments he had.
Of all his projects, he had to pick the best one or two. She wouldn’t want to go over all of them. His enchanted glove, there wasn’t much the metal work and what was there poor, but it showed he could hold a hammer or at least a rock like hammer. His calculator was the most impressive project, but he doubted she’d care. Maybe the wood sword he brought? His father had let him keep it after their match since it couldn’t be used anymore. It was wood, no real metal work. Yet, it was enchanted. Looking around, these really were the best two.
He had considered his microscope, but all he had done was shove to poorly fitted pipes into each other with some glass lenses, it was even less than his glove. His calculator was impressive, but it seemed unlikely she’d understand the enchantments and circuits there.
There were a few other items, fragments of other experiments, but again, little in the way of actual metalwork. These two would have to be enough. Grabbing a coin from his purse, he nearly ran back to the blacksmith, hopeful he had a winning combination, but steeling himself just incase he had to find other arrangements.
Annsa glare grew sharper as her eyes narrowed with what he placed on a near by work bench. “You’re kidding right? You’re wasting my time with a wooden sword and this, glove?”
Picking up the glove she sneered. “This is all leather work, aside from the plate. The metal is pop-marked, and rough. It looks like you beat it with a rock not a hammer. This is garbage kid.” She quickly turned it over after dismissing it, yet didn’t let go it.
Looking at the ground, Reese didn’t like the criticism even if it was true. The fact that he had used a rock to help shape part of it somehow made it worse.
She seemed captivated by all the gold traces and mana stones. For a moment he was hopeful he’d have a chance to show her the enchantments at least. Unfortunately, her words showed she wouldn’t care. “Eh, now what’s with all this foil and stones, you think you can make it pretty with something shinny?”
Putting it down, she went to the wooden sword. Looking for any sign of metal to judge, “This thing is all wood, looks mass produced too did you even-“ Her words were cut off as the sword seemed to move itself under her fingers. “Whoa. What’s going on here?”
With a light swing the sword slammed into the work bench top and Annsa let go of it. Rubbing her wrists in pain. “What in the gods ire was that?”
Carefully, Reese picked up the sword and showed the gold foil and mana stone at the bottom of the cross bar. “I know it’s just wood, but I enchanted it with this circuit. I know it’s not metal work, but I remember people saying enchanting was a part of smiting I thought, maybe it would be enough to convince you.”
The dark elf squinted between the sword and him. “I ain’t ever heard of someone enchanting a wooden sword before.” Staring at the metal foil she shook her head, “No. This is too intricate for an enchantment.” Again she move the sword slightly, only for it to pull forward again.
Reese held up his glove as she dropped the sword. “I also enchanted this gauntlet. It’s got a similar speed enchantment to it. But I added some control and a physical interface circuitry to it.”At least, he assumed it was a physical interface design, he still couldn’t read that book and was guessing at it’s functionality.
Again, the elf woman’s eyes squinted at all the tiny traces and the small mana stone embedded in it. “Kid, this can’t be an enchantment, it’s too intricate you’ve got a bunch of different mana stones here too. In my 35 years of smiting, I never seen anything like this. I may not know enough about them, but I do know you can’t do that… Without them feeding back…”
Pausing, another thought crossed her mind, “You said you weren’t good a smithing, yet you made these enchantments?”
“Yeah, is that hard to believe?” Reese shrugged, he didn’t really understand the problem.
“Boy you got it backwards. A person gets good at smiting first, then learns how to enchant. I never heard of anyone doing it the other way. Maybe from some mage somewhere but that’s rare. They don’t much care about enchantments and look down on smiths.” She put the half glove back on the work bench and sat down on a near by stool.
Continuing, Annsa’s voice softened a bit “Who taught you how to do this?”
“I taught myself, also discovered a few things by experimenting.”
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“During our meeting they said you were inept when it came to magics. Don’t know if that’s true or not but these enchantments…” Annsa’s eyes wandered over his face, perhaps looking for signs of a lie or deception. “Ok. I’ll let you use the workshop, and I’ll teach you some of the basics of metal working too, but in exchange, I want you to teach me how to enchant like this.”
“Sure, but…” Reese trailed off, unsure of his own abilities.
The dark elf woman looked a bit annoyed. “Eh, but what? Seems a fair deal to me.”
“I mean it is, I’m just not sure about my skills. I do like to teach though so I’m willing to try. Just curious though, why do you want to learn?”
Annsa still looked annoyed, but maybe that was just how her face was, “The Vallhorn pay me well, very well in fact. I get 5 silvers for each day I work. If I had my own shop I might make that much, maybe even a bit more, but it would come with a lot more risk and work. That said, I’m getting older. Day’s going to come when I may not be able to hold a hammer like I do now. Being able to work on enchantments, even if it’s just fixing what’s already there might help keep some coins in my pocket when I get older.”
Reese nodded at her logic, it seemed sound. “Did you ever try to learn it before?”
“Not really. Seen my fair share but never worked on any. Never had the chance to learn. Most smiths who know tend to keep it to themselves, maybe just teaching one or two apprentices. No one’s going to teach an old woman like me.” Her voice was calm and hard. She wasn’t going to cry if he said no, but she also wouldn’t let him use the shop.
“Ok. Well it sounds fair to me, so long as you’re ok learning from a novice.” He tried to smile, but it felt forced, like a part of him was lying.
“Boy, like I said, I’ve seen my fair share of enchantments from master black smiths and mages both. Even if I can’t make them, I still ain’t ever seen anything like this.”
Holding out his hand, Reese took Annsa and gave it a quick shake. This seemed like it could be a promising partnership.
“Would you be willing to help me do something right now?” With a hopeful inflection in his voice, he smiled.
“Ha, you already have something in mind?”
“I do.” Reaching in his pocket he pulled out the one gold coin he had. “Right now, I want to melt down my gold coin and make some gold wire from it.”
“You want to melt down your gold coin?” She looked at the shinny item in Reese’s fingers.
“Yeah, I don’t have any raw gold and figured this would work.” He handed it to her, hoping she rush to start a fire going. Instead she just continued to look at it.
“Well, it would be cheaper to just buy gold. You can get at least an extra 20% the weight of the coin, and you’d know it was pure gold. Most coins are alloys.” She paused and handed the coin back to him. “Also, more importantly it wouldn’t be illegal.”
“Melting coins is illegal? I didn’t realize.” His face turned back to his coin, a mixture of shock and worry. In retrospect he should have known it wouldn’t be legal. Afterall, even back on earth, defacing money was to varying degrees, illegal. Particularly melting coins down.
Annsa, shrugged and rubbed at her shoulders. “Eh, not really any of my business and I doubt anyone really cares. They’d be more worried about you trying to make fakes. Still, it could cause trouble for the lord and lady.”
“I see. I guess it can wait, I’ll try to go and buy some later.”
“You had your heart set on doing this today, huh? Ok, then tell me, why do you need gold for enchantments in the first place? Why not something else.”
“Well, gold is able to channel mana better than most materials. Silver can also work, but it tarnishes and that can cause it to fail. Copper can also be used but you’re limited to flame mana, and it also tarnishes. I think other materials could work, but overall for what I’ve read and experimented with, gold is best. I have done some research on different materials I’ve tried, it’s all written in my journals. Plus, if you let me do this today I’ll show you how the sword enchantment works afterwards.”
Annsa nodded before slapping her legs to stand up, “So, if I want to make my own enchantments, I’ll need gold. Ok, I’ll take you up on that offer too. Now, do you know your way around the high market at all?”
“Not that well, but I can find a shop if you tell me where it is?”
“Alright, it’s not far from the golden stairs. Head south down Vallhorn road and take a right, heading towards the south west gate. There’s a shop called, ‘Regal Jewels’ about half way down…”
Well, he didn’t quite know where the so called ‘golden stairs’ were, but he did understand south and west. His time wandering around the high market earlier was interesting, but also informative. He could remember Beeson mentioning something about a ‘golden apple’. But nothing about stairs. As he walked down Vallhorn Road, he noticed that many items on display just didn’t have prices on them. Those that did, like the shirt from earlier, were often many times the monthly, if not yearly, wages of a commoner. There were a few shops he made note of those, a few bookstores, and a shop that seemed to be selling ‘enchanted’ armor and weapons.
Even as he tried not to stop, he couldn’t help himself as a silver short sword shined and reflected a bit of sunlight at him. Tracing the small bits of gold near the hilt, it was clearly enchanted, but it seemed to be quite simple. It was almost passive without a mana stone or crystal it would rely on the holder’s own mana stores. It looked like a simple ‘metal’ seal that would harden the otherwise soft metal. But nothing more. It was strange, but the small slip of paper that was tied to it, seemed far more fascinating. The tag had the word of the shop written on it, then nothing else. But on the opposite side, there were the subtle inlay of gold ink and a very small shard of what looked like a ‘sonic’ mana stone.
There wasn’t much time to look the enchantment over, before the shop keep had come out to admonish him for messing his wears. It was a shame he didn’t have more time to speak to him, but he didn’t have all day.
Eventually, he did find the shop, and the jeweler. The shopkeeper was an old dwarven man, who was quite mean and rude. He almost reminded Reese of Annsa a bit.
When he mentioned her name, the dwarf’s face twisted into a grimace. “Eh, you know that old woman. She’s a royal pain in my ass. Has been since we were younger, and she said I’d sell you my gold supply huh?” The dwarf shook his head in disgust and walked back into a door behind the counter. For a moment, Reese wondered if the older dwarf was going to come back. But hearing him fuss about in back, gave Reese a moment to consider the various items in his shop.
As expected, almost everything there was well outside of his price range. Strangely, many of these also had similar tags as the other shop. He twisted one between his fingers. The enchantment was very strange. It looked like two or three separate circuits, one of which might have been a ‘parasite’ circuit. Designed to pick up a wayward mana signal from somewhere else. The whole thing looked like an idea he had sketched out before, a pseudo mana radio like circuit. But he could never get it to work right.
“Don’t touch those! Your mana will set them off.” The Jewler yelled at him, as he came back with a small bag and a small scale. Whatever was in the bag had a subtle soft thunk to it. Like the sounds of soft metal impacting on itself.
The dwarf took the gold coin from Reese and stared at it for a while as if inspecting it.
If he hadn’t known better, he think it was the dwarf’s first time seeing a gold coin. “Can never be to sure with these sunny’s.”
Seemingly satisfied with the coin the dwarf carefully setup the scale and measured two times the gold coin’s weight, and then used the scale to split one of the piles in half. Satisfied he shoved the modest quantity of gold shard, pebbles and fragments into a tiny canvas bag.
“Normally I buy raw gold for about one and half times a coin’s weight. There’s about that much in here. Just a few shaves less.” The older dwarf quickly gave Reese the bag of gold fragments.
“Actually, I had a quick question.” Reese asked the dwarf, who almost seemed annoyed.
“I’ve got a shop to run, what?” His voice was gruff, and clearly growing more annoyed.
“I was just wondering what you meant when you said I’d set it off?” Reese asked as he put the pouch of gold in one of his pockets.
“The tag you dolt. That paper is enchanted. You mess with it, it sets if off. They aren’t cheap to reset either. You got your gold, if you’re not buying anything else you can leave.” The jeweler looked behind Reese at a rather well-dressed woman who had just come in. Clearly the merchant had bigger customers than himself.
At the very least he was able to learn something new. It was possible to make enchantments on paper, and it didn’t look like it required too much to do it. A thought crossed his mind. If you could enchant paper, maybe there was more you could do with it. He jotted some notes down in his pocket journal as he walked back to the castle, doing his best to sketch out what he could remember about that enchantment.
It didn’t take all that long to melt the gold and shape it into a small rod. From there, Annsa pulled out a large somewhat heavy metal plate. Looking at the dark color, it seemed like some kind of hard steel, with various tapered holes in it. “Ok, now you want to make wire you gotta pull through this jig here. Start with the hole that’s just a bit to small for it, and pound it in lightly with a hammer. Now, harder metals you might have to cut the tip into a tapper to do this. Really hard metals you might have to do while red hot.”
Nodding, Reese took nearly a page of notes as they pulled the wire.
Eventually, what had been a roughly 7 centimeter thin rod, had grown to several meters of a thin and shiny wire. But, “It’s still too thick.” He protested.
“Why in all the gods ire would you need it to be thinner than that?” Annsa huffed in frustration.
“Just, what I’m doing needs these traces to be really close together.”
“Well, that’s the smallest hole in my jig and I aint ever seen one smaller than that.”
Back on earth Reese had never done any real metal work. But, he did know gold was very ductile so, “Maybe we can pull it?”
The process was, slow. Pulling the gold wire had to be done carefully. The thicker wire was wound around one end of the table, and passed over two other metal dowls that gave it just a bit of extra friction as they wound the slightly thin thread around wooden dowl. Then, they would repeat the process in reverse. He also needed to monitor it for any thin spots that might break. A fact that happened twice. But, in the end they had done it.
The strand thickness was somewhat inconsistent, but overall thin enough and should work. The thread was greased lightly to keep it from sticking to itself too much. A grease which coated his hands and made them feel gummy. That feeling of grime after solving a problem caused him to smile. This was almost more fun than teaching.
In his hand, he held it. About 2 pebbles or 40g worth of very thin gold thread.
“So what kind of enchantments you planning to make with that anyway?” Annsa’s own curiosity caused her voice to soften, just a bit.
Reese smirked and for a brief moment, a glint of silver seemed to cover one of his eyes. “I’m going to build something that will change this world.”
‘Build. Machines.’
Again, that voice echoed through his mind. Like an infinity of voices, in an infinitesimally small dot.