Annabelle idly fingered the tear drop amulet that hung just above her ample bosom, a gift from Adrian, a simple silver amulet with a dark blue stone. It was a simple elegant design, something a true craftsman would appreciate, unlike the guady and often necklaces and pendants worn by the young high born ladies that surounded her. She often caught them sneering at her, or disparaging her character in hushed conversations, a product of jealousy inspired by her doting young lord. Their behavior didn't bother her in the slightest, it was amusing seeing the young noble women elbow deep in scalding hot water scrubbing pots and pans under the watchful glare of the Tower's cook. It amused her greatly to see hands usually soft as silk covered in scprapes and bruises from hard labor.
Three months had past since their apprenticeship in the Onyx Tower had begun, in many ways it was not all too different from her life as a maid. Each morning she would wake up and dress in a plain grey woolen robe and visit the Mistress of Novices to be asigned her chores for the day. After chores came breakfast, often consisting of bread, stew, and fruit, from there they would visit the lecture hall. Each day they would receive lessons on the basics of magic, its nature, and its application, though she had no luck applying what ever magic she possesed.
Her apparent lack of progress was dishartening, though she took it in stride and kept pushing forward with all the stubbornness of a wild boar.
Weekends were the days she cherished most, after chores were completed they were allowed to use their time as they saw fit. It was the two days at the end of every week where she could be alone with the man whom she had given herself too. It was also a day where they could apply for permits to spend time in the city, it often helped if one had a proper reason, frivolous requests were often denied with long bouts of lecturing from the sharp tongued Mistress of Novices.
Her first request had garnered a confused stare from the usually stone faced woman, she had not expected Annabelle to be a blacksmith, especially due to the livery she wore on her days off.
Today her purpose was to visit one of the smithys that had posted a hiring notice for a part time journeyman, it was common for lare workshops to rent space to up and coming smiths in exchange for help filling large work orders.
She found the shop she was looking for tucked between two ware houses, though plain and unassuming the shops sign caught her eye, the master smiths mark of both the Tiberian and Dwarven smithing guilds were hammered into its surface. It was a claim that could not be taken lightly, if a smith falsely boasted such accomplishments the guild would run them out of business and would spread the information making them persona non grata in the business. The sign simply bore the name Hammer-Hand's.
Upon entering she was greeted by the familiar ringing of hammer upon steel and a blast of hot air, on one side of the room was a mountainous pile of a rare commodity saught by every smith from Tiber to the Black Coasts, dwarven smokeless coal. That pile would easily be five hundred gold pieces at whole sale, nearly seven hundred at market value, she could only have dreamed of such a thing. Standing on the opposite side of the room was an irritated dwarf watching over a young man attempting to work a piece of steel, with each blow of the hammer she could see his frustration grown. The young man had lilely boasted of skills he had not quite possessed as every few blows his hammer woul skate off and slam into the anvil with a grating clank instead of the ping of a clean bow.
"Ya call that smithing ya bastard, my anvils cryin out in pain, I oughta find yer previous master and give him a firm kick in the stones, now get the fuck out of my forge" the Dwarf yelled at the young man as he yanked the hammer out of his hand. The man didn't even have time to apologize as the Dwarf gave him a swift boot to the back side before scratching his bald head.
"Excuse me master Dwarf" Annabelle called out as the man ran past her choking back tears. "Eh, lass sorry yeh had teh see that, so what can I" the dwarf stopped mid sentence as he looked over her appearance. She had worn a linnen tunic, breeches, and her heavy leather smithing apron, a belt laden with hammers clung to her waist. "Alright there's the forge, make me anthing ya want, I assume yer here for teh job" the dwarf motioned towards the forge.
Annabelle looked at the pile of barstock the dwarf had in his metal bin, picking up each and carefully searching for stress fractures, inclusions, and getting a rough feeling for their hardness. She found three that satisfied her desires and began raking the coals and working the bellows to reinvigorate the flames that had been poorly stoked by the previous amateur earning her a slight nod of approval. One by one she took the bar stock and began drawing out their length into relatively thin lathes, once the steel reached the dimensions she desired she took a chisel and began hot cutting the lathes into short rectangles and stacked them in alternating layers.
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With the invention of crucible steel pattern welding had gone out of fashion, largely due to its difficuty, a single imperfection in the steel could cause the objet to delaminate and fracture, it was the perfect way to demonstrate her skills. She became entranced in her work becoming dead to the world around, her senses picking up every shift in steels themperature or flucuation of the forge raking or billowing to adjust. In her mind there was only the steel, the forge and herself. With a practised ease she pulled the steel at its peak and began to strike with precision and power never allowing the steel the chance to become cold where it could become stress fractured. As time passed she could feel the nature of the steel, it held a good balance between hardness and flexibility, it seemed that the steel wanted to be shaped into a blade and she listened to its desires.
After streching out and folding the steel several times she once more formed a lathe of steel, placing the lave in a vice she began to twist in into a spiral like wrought iron. One last heating and then she bagan hammering out the sword blank, timing her blows for minimal wasted energy. With the fuller completed the blade would need to aneal over night, she wiped her brown and took a step back from her work. She panted with exhaustion and her arms felt heavy and sore, she turned towards the dwarf to seek his opinion with a gesture.
Falgar Hammer-Hand had almost two hundred years to master his trade, few things had managed to impress when it came to the art of forging, save for the mad engineer Therradin Black-Rock. Therradin the Mad, that bastard was an incomprehensible monster who constantly invented new and terrifying weapons, but this seemingly plain looking girl had left him speechless.
He would have confidently placed that blade alongside his own work at one of the tourneys wher he often slode his highest quality blades. There was still room for improvement in her form, however her skill spoke for it's self, after taking her under his tutelage he would nominate her for a master's certificate. What was most impressive was her focus, it had been late morning when she started and now the sun was beginning to set.
"Lass, you're hired, when can ya start" he inquired. Annabelle looked nervous as she spoke, "I'm only available on the weekend, I'm a novice of the Onyx Tower, I'm sorry but once I reach the rank of adept I'll have more freedom". A mage and a smith, did this girl have no end to her talent her thought as he rushed over to where he kept his parchment and quill. "Here, give this to the Mistress of Novices, I do a lot of work for teh enchanters at teh tower, come back tomorrow and we'll finish yer blade" Falgar beamed a smile at his new apprentice.
Annabelle left to for the tower ignorant of the full scope of what the dwarf had bore witness to as she became lost in her work. Unbeknownst to her she had channeled the faintest amount of magic into its creation, turning what should have been a regular sword into something of a mystery.
Falgar sat and sighed, everything ke knew about enchanting told him that what had happened was impossible. There were only two types of enchanting that exsisted, the runic enchantment of the dwarves, and the addition of aether dust to the steel during the forging process followed by a mage weaving an enchantment into the blade. Some how the girl had entirely bypassed the use of aether residue, he even confirmed the presence of magic by placing a sensing crystal on the blade causing it to glow a faint green.
Annabelle awoke and visited the Mistress of Novices as usual, standing beside her was an elderly man with white hair dressed in a blue robe maked with silver bolts of lightning. "Good morning Mistress" she said with the same cutrsy she learned serving Adrian's father. "Good morning Annabelle, this is Enchanter Irvine, he seems to have some business with you regarding yesterday, you're excused from today's chores" the Mistress explained introducing the old man. "Good morning young one, I've come to speak to you about you recent activities, though it would be best if we speak elsewhere, come" the old man explained as he began leading her to Hammer-Hand's.
"So this is the blade you wrote to me about" Irvine spoke not bothering to acknowledge any one around him as he focused his attention on the blade before him. It was just as described, the blade held none of the blue tint of enchanted steel, there was no aether material he could sense in its construction. How she had done such a thing was beyond him, " how, how is this possible, show me what you did" he barked excitedly suddenly spinning to face her. "Oi ease off the lass or I'll crack yer skull old man" Falgar warned as he put himself between them, he knew Irvine meant no harm but the man could be overbearing when excited. "W-what are you talking about" Annabelle stuttered as she recoiled from the old man. "It's enchanted, you've forged an enchanted weapon with out any Aether, it's unprecedented, it's impossible, it's revolutionary" Irvine sputtered with excitement. "I've never been able to channel my powers during any of the lessons, how is that possible" Annabelle inquired furrowing her brow. Irvine stroked his long beard in thought before opening his eyes in suprise, "what if the nature of your strange magic lays solely in the creation of objects, come you must forge another blade, a knife this time".
Annabelle rolled up her sleeves with a smile on her face and took an offered apron before engrossing herself in her work while the two watched in silence.