Tunde simply lay down on his bed, his entire body both mentally and physically exhausted. His bones echoed with the damage gotten from sparring, his head pounding and his heart feeling like it had been put through the wrangle just by training with the Highlord. He had passed out into a much relieving slumber, awoken only by the chirp of a bed that kept pecking at his window, groaning from the disturbance. It was late at night, and the lights of the city burned bright, Tunde sighed to himself as he rolled on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
It was dark in his room, just as he liked it, shutting his eyes, his mind replaying the various scenes that had happened to him within the few months after the battle of Jade Peak as it was called. He stared at his hand, coaxing a power he had kept hidden for a long time flare back up. Black and white flames sprang to life, barely illuminating the room, as if they drank in the darkness itself.
He stared into the flames themselves watching as it licked his skin harmlessly before putting it out, sitting up and staring at the communication disc that lay on the table next to him. It had been delivered a few days before and Tunde had found himself hesitant to even look at its contents, already aware that it could come from only two sources.
The first would bring back memories he had already tried to suppress, a feeling of longing for a friend he might not see till hegemons knew when. The other option was even worse, one he didn’t want to consider in the slightest, especially with Varis breathing down his neck, but he had put it off long enough, it was time to know what it held. Using his aura to encapsulate the entire room, he fed it a bit of his Ethra, watching as the gibberish-looking inscriptions on its metal surface came to life with a soft blue glow, a figure taking shape.
For once, Tunde found himself smiling softly, staring into the yellow-haired head of Elyria who looked better. She smiled at him, even despite it being a recorded message, Tunde found himself wishing she were here. It had always been the both of them against unimaginable odds, he had found himself loving Miria, the sleek, quiet, and utterly deadly woman somehow becoming attracted to him. With Elyria however, he felt a sort of kinship, like a junior sibling missing his elder sister, as bizarre as it sounded to him.
“Tunde, I hope this meets you well” she started.
“No doubt you must be settling well into black rock, either that or you’ve become a lackey for the imperial clan, and knowing you?, well, let’s just say that it’s next to impossible.” She said with a snort.
He gave a soft smile at that.
Her expression changed to that of thoughtfulness as she continued.
“Bloodfire is a big place Tunde, the things I’ve encountered, monsters and cultivators alike, let’s just say even at lord stage you’ll be nothing but an insect to the beings that roam the continent”
“And believe me, I’ve barely escaped with my life at times, the fact that I somehow got to Talahar and now going to take a skyship to the border in order to get to the technocracy has been nothing short of luck,” she said, shaking her head.
“The imperial clan really does know how to spend, it’s like the entire capital is made out of lumens, shiny and just humming with wealth, adepts here are servants, can you even believe that?” she said incredulously.
“All that work just to advance and you end up a servant to some family or clan, really does put things into perspective”
Elyria shook her head, as if gathering her thoughts before she continued.
“Forgive me, I’m losing my train of thought, this might be my first and last message to you before I settle within the technocracy. Hopefully, your Ark spire gets repaired and we can communicate through the system” she said.
“But I’ve been asking around, and to be honest, it’s not looking good, the technocracy has no plans to fix it anytime soon, something about an agreement with the Heralds” she continued, shaking her head.
“Stay safe Tunde, advance, get strong enough to stand among the true powers of Bloodfire, you best believe I’ll be doing that as well, don’t fall too far behind, may the hegemons be with you Tunde” she finished as it cut off.
Tunde once more found himself in the darkness, staring into nothingness, despite the urge to summon Ethra sight. He called up Ifa, the sentient screen appearing as it wrote.
[how may I help you, Scion of Luwaye?] it said.
Tunde frowned.
[don’t call me that] he retorted.
[you are the purest of Luwaye’s living descendants, no other term is acknowledged]
He felt ire rising in him as he clamped it down viciously, taking a deep breath before he wrote again.
[replay the recording] he ordered.
Tunde watched as the screen went blank for a minute before coming back to life, a featureless face on the screen as it spoke in a calm yet powerful male voice.
“To whatever descendant of ours has managed to obtain a fang of Alana, your blood pure enough to activate this scroll, I can only give my sincerest apologies, for this is not a fate I would wish on anyone of ours” it started.
Tunde had listened to this message over and over, committing it to memory, but yet, he always found himself listening to it over and over. It was the same message he had found in the void chest back in the secret room that had belonged to artificer Borus. It was a message, supposedly from an ancestor dead a millennia ago, that Tunde found himself doubting. That was months ago, now, he found himself replaying the memory over and over with clear precision as the day he had seen it for the first time, Ifa, somehow keeping it fresh within his mind.
“I do not know what state our people will be left in by the time you find this recording, or if we would even still exist at all. The walls of our last domain are already being besieged by those we once called allies along with our enemies, nothing remains of our great bastions, all of them lie in smoldering ruins” the voice continued.
“I can only imagine what you have gone through, maybe chance, or fate itself has decided you find this, but I can only ask you something I would ask of any descendant of the realm walker”
It paused as if loathe to speak.
“Redeem us, avenge us, within this recording are the locations of what remains of the realm walker, as well as our true purpose. You will know why they wanted us dead and out of the way, we represent a bridge to a reality far worse than what Adamath could manage, it is why the realm walker sealed it away” it added.
Tunde took a deep breath, pausing the recording before typing out.
[cancel recording] he ordered.
It fizzled away, Tunde rubbing his forehead with a sigh before getting to his feet, his once sore body now back in pristine shape. Varis had once questioned how he was able to recover rapidly without the help of any elixir or pills seeing as they were next to impossible to find around the borders of the empire. Tunde had shrugged it off to his tempering method, something he knew the Highlord didn’t believe, his expression whenever he brought it up saying as much.
Stretching, he stared around the room, opening his spatial space, the technique revealing a yawning bottomless black hole where all his possessions simply floated about, awaiting his command. Two large pieces of metal floated out, Tunde grabbing a hold of them as he considered his next train of action before deciding on one.
The technique he named [void space] closed up with his removal of the metals, holding them in his hands before making his way out of his quarters. Avoiding the room of the Highlord even as he felt his power from within, Tunde made his way of black rock itself, moving towards the closest district. Despite the growing size of the settlement, he found himself easily moving through it without the aid of a transport construct, the settlement itself not yet as big as jade peak to need it.
The night skies were filled with the bustling night markets and stalls that were either closing up for the day or just opening, the clanging of metals and the smoke in the air either coming from the stalls that sold food or the forges, where he was headed. The Iron District as it was called, was christened by the only senior forgesmith among them. Tunde found himself stopping at one of the stalls, buying some roasted meat of one of the numerous reptilian creatures that filled the wastelands and were hunted.
It was a running joke among the people of the city that there was no need for the rankers to actively hunt the creatures of the wastelands, sooner or later, the people of black rock would eat them all. Tunde found it hilarious and a bit ignorant, they hadn’t seen the tier of creatures he had seen in the wastelands, but he understood the joke. Livestock was scarce in black rock, and Lady Ryka’s attempts to bargain with the merchants of the empire themselves to bring some to them had fallen on deaf ears, no one willing to brave the last part of the surge to deliver anything to the wastelands, not after they had heard of what had transpired within the last few months either way.
Gratefully thanking the old woman who sold it, he bit into its juicy flesh, nodding appreciatively at the taste as he made his way to the forges directly. The once shining cobblestone ground was now cracked and pitted, maintenance was not paramount to the people of this district. Still, he appreciated the way it was run, the buildings built in box-like manners next to each other, all the hot hair billowing skywards only to be gathered into crystals and sold to the numerous smoke or heat cultivators that were prevalent among the forgesmiths of the district at a discounted price.
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He stopped at a large unmarked building, smirking to himself as he stepped in, the roaring forges masking his entrance and Tunde going unnoticed by the throngs of people within it. One thing he loved about this district was that he was treated the same as them, few hardly even knew him well enough to realize a lord was in their midst and Tunde loved it, let all the attention go to Varis himself.
He made his way through the bulky men who stooped at their forges, eyes alight as they forged different items, some for the rudimentary uses of the settlement as well as customized weapons needed by the rankers of black rock. Forging imbued weapons under adept tier was easy, it only needed to be able to conduct whatever Ethra was required to flow through it, but Tunde knew well enough how resistant Ethereon was to forging.
Few rankers within black rock had the pull of making the head forgesmith of the settlement to make a weapon for them, something Tunde found funny because a few months prior, he didn’t expect him to be in that position. He stopped in front of the farthest forge, watching the bulky figure hold a crucible filled with molten Ethereon, dropping what looked like the core of some creature found in the wasteland within it, the dark silver Ethereon liquid glowing a bright red before pouring it into a mold in the shape of a large sword.
The figure froze for a second, watching the liquid cool down a little before taking his hammer and slamming it into the mold, cracking it, a pair of heavy pincers grabbing the barely formed sword with little to no effort before placing it on an anvil.
“you’re a rare sight indeed, lord Tunde,” he said.
Tunde smiled, taking off his upper robe as the heat was beginning to get to him, folding it as a young boy bowed at him, collecting it. He glanced behind him, seeing the other forgesmiths hastily bowing at him before Draven spoke, his voice loud.
“All right!, nothing to see here, just your average lord passing through, better get to beating those metals or no wages for you!” he roared.
Tunde shook his head, watching as the large men scampered around and back to their forges like chastised children. The red-hot blade glowed as Draven began to pound it with his hammer, Tunde watching the adept wield his aura tightly around the metal, the hammer landing as if he followed the rhythm of some beat. He found himself entranced within it till Draven spoke again.
“I’m guessing you didn’t drop by just to say hello?” he asked.
Tunde raised his hands in exasperation.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” he asked as Draven chuckled.
“We're not blind Tunde, we see just how much you’ve thrown yourself into honing your techniques and path, pretty sure with the exception of the Highlord, no one in black rock is a match for you any longer”
Tunde frowned.
“It doesn’t mean I’m good yet,” he said.
Draven dropped the blade into a bucket of water flowing with the same Ethra of whatever creature whose core had gone into forging the weapon.
“Look, half of the risk that comes with being a ranker is the fact that someone stronger than you can show up anytime and simply take whatever they want, especially if they have some big family, clan, or organization behind them” Draven explained.
“Usually, the only way to avoid getting trampled on or worse, killed, is if you simply accept whatever demands they make, or better still, ensure you have your own bigger clan or organization behind you”
“Which we don’t have,” Tunde said, cutting in.
Draven paused, the metal steaming before speaking.
“You have direct access to a member of the main branch of the Talahan family”
“Who doesn’t care if we live or die, he simply intends to use us- “
“yes, yes, use us as a shield against this king that comes from the wastelands” Draven cut in.
“And yet, this presents an opportunity unlike any other for us to get what we can from him, you of all people should know better” he added.
Tunde said nothing, nodding before turning to the dead forge next to that of Draven, eyeing it quietly.
“Listen, Draven, can I- “
“No,” Draven said, Tunde raising an eyebrow.
The adept folded his hands.
“Let me guess, you want to try your hands at forge smithing?” he asked.
“That was the intention, yes” Tunde replied.
“No, lady Ryka’s orders,” Draven said before turning back to the metal, pounding it again.
Tunde stared at his back in silence for a few minutes till Draven paused with a sigh.
“Are you going to keep staring at my back?” he asked.
“Either that or go tell Isolde that the reason you’ve been avoiding coming home on time was to avoid her cooking, your choice” he replied.
Draven turned slowly to him; eyes alight.
“Oh, you think you’re the only observant person?” Tunde asked with a smirk.
“How did you know?” Draven whispered.
“The dogs”
“What?” the adept asked confused.
“The dogs, the ones you kept feeding her food to,” Tunde said slowly, as if relishing the terror on his face.
“Ani kept reporting the dogs kept turning up with some sort of sickness or the other, turns out they’d been around your districted, it didn’t take me long to put two and two together” Tunde explained.
Draven chewed on his reply.
“you’re making a mistake” he growled.
Tunde raised an eyebrow.
“Am I?, you’re the one being stubborn” he replied.
“Lady Ryka fears that you’ll exhaust yourself, something we’re all seeing” Draven argued.
“Let me be the judge of that”
Draven gave a big sigh.
“You can’t even forgesmith, not unless you want to just forge an ordinary blade” Draven argued again.
Tunde revealed the Ethereon metals in his hands, Draven’s eyes straying to it.
“Cultivators around these parts would sell their firstborns for a piece of that and you so casually have two large pieces on hand,” he said.
Tunde shrugged.
“I could give you a little if you ask nicely”
Draven rolled his eyes.
“You are not seriously thinking of wasting two large pieces of Ethereon on your first time smithing, right?” he asked.
“Nothing like taking a few risks” Tunde replied.
Draven shook his head.
“No, not in my forge, give them to me, I’ll hold on to them for now till you become passable as a forgehand, whenever that is,” he said dubiously.
Tunde handed them over wordlessly.
“Your domain, your rules,” he said softly.
Draven snorted, snapping his fingers as the young boy appeared again.
“Fire up that forge for our lord here, apparently he wants to see what we go through in here,” he said.
A loud roar broke out, Tunde breaking into a smile, freezing as his screen popped up by itself.
[incomplete forging manual available] it wrote.
Draven noted his reaction, Tunde masking it with a smile before he typed back.
[what do you mean?] he asked.
[you are attempting to forge, lost forging art of smithing ‘Irin’ available for the bloodline of Luwaye, accept?] it asked.
Tunde stared at it hesitantly.
[what tier is it?] he asked again.
[technique has been broken into fragments for protection, tier 1 & 2 available] Ifa replied.
Tunde tsked in irritation, accepting it. A rush of Ethra ran through him as the sentience replied.
[technique is adjusting for compatibility with Ethra sight] it wrote.
[adjustment completed, forge skill Irin [tier 2] acquired]
Draven returned with a large piece of metal in his hand, giving it to Tunde as he spoke.
“First of all, what are you trying to make exactly?” he asked.
Tunde stared at the metal in his hand before speaking.
“Short blades” he replied calmly.
“An odd weapon for you considering you used a large double-edged axe but your choice,” Draven said scratching his recently grown beard.
“I’ll get to making a mold for you, you want me to stay by you or do you know the earlier stages?” he asked.
“It would be quite embarrassing if I hadn’t learned anything from my numerous trips to your forge, don’t you think?” Tunde replied.
Draven shrugged.
“Suit yourself” he replied, turning away.
Tunde faced the forge again, watching the flames grow hotter. Turning to his screen, he tapped on the technique. A deep voice echoed in his ears as the image of a large figure appeared next to him, featureless as well but his brown skin evident that he was from Crystalreach as well. In his hand was a large hammer and an illusionary forge and anvil right in front of him.
As the figure stood in the dimly lit forge, surrounded by the glow of flickering flames, he felt a sudden pressure in the air all around him, as if the heat Ethra in the room was currently being drawn to his forge. The deep voice resonated, speaking with authority and clarity.
"Listen closely, young one," the voice began, its tone echoing within the confines of the forge. "What you are about to learn is the sacred forging technique known as 'Irin.' It is an art passed down through generations, lost to time but now revealed to you."
Tunde’s heart raced with excitement and anticipation as he realized the significance of this moment. The presence of the illusionary figure and the ethereal voice seemed to merge with the ambient energy of the forge, creating an atmosphere charged with raw power.
The illusionary figure raised the hammer and began to strike the illusionary metal rhythmically against the anvil, each blow resonating with a melodic clang. With each strike, Tunde could feel the vibrations reverberate through his body, syncing with the pulsating energy of Ethra, the magic that permeated the room.
"The essence of Irin lies in harmony," the voice continued, guiding the character's movements. "To forge with Irin is to meld metal, Ethra, and spirit, to coax the very essence of the material to bend to your will."
As Tunde followed the instructions, he felt a surge of Ethra coursing through him, intertwining with the elemental forces of fire and metal Ethra that subsumed the room, lost in his own mind. It was as if the Ethra itself was guiding his hands, imbuing each strike of the hammer with otherworldly power.
"Focus your mind," the voice urged, its words blending with the whispers of Ethra. "Feel the flow of energy within the metal, guide it with your will."
With each passing moment, Tunde felt a deepening connection to the metal, as if it were alive and responsive to his every thought. The lines between reality and illusion blurred as he surrendered himself to the teachings of Irin. He had no idea about the passage of time, simply heating and pounding, not even aware of when the mold had been placed and him breaking it out, everything seemingly passing in a blur.
Slowly, he felt his consciousness begin to come down from whatever point it had been, aware of his surroundings and the blistering heat in the room that could scorch off the skin of an initiate.
"Good," the voice boomed with approval. "You are beginning to grasp the fundamentals of Irin. But remember, this is only the beginning. With practice and dedication, you will unlock its true potential."
With a final strike of the hammer, the illusionary figure faded away, leaving Tunde standing alone in the forge, his mind buzzing with newfound knowledge and excitement for the journey ahead. And as the last echoes of the ethereal voice faded, Tunde knew that he had taken his first steps on the path of mastering the ancient art of Irin, guided by whatever that voice had been.
Then he realized he was the only one around his surroundings, glancing around to see the entirety of the forgesmiths standing a good distance away, staring at him with wide eyes. Tunde stared at them confused.
“I should have known lady Ryka had good reasons with her orders,” Draven said from where he stood, imbuement technique of rock armor covering him.
Tunde was about to ask what he meant when he noticed he was steaming, like a forged metal himself, and fatigue began to set in, wobbling on his feet even as Draven came close to him.
“Easy there lord,” he said.
“With what we’ve just witnessed, I’m surprised you aren’t a charred piece of meat” he murmured.
Tunde drank water from a pitcher, opening the void ring on his hand and taking out one of the emergency endurance elixirs he kept there, draining it in one gulp before speaking.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
“You became a ball of heat and fire that’s what happened,” Draven said.
The doors of the smithy opening up revealed Isolde coming to a hurried stop, eyes wide as she hissed.
“What in the name of the hegemons happened here?” she asked.
Draven pursed his lips, pointing at Tunde.
“He did,” he said.
Tunde found himself wheezing in laughter as he calmed down, his eyes straying to the two pitch-black blades that sat on his anvil, steam and what looked like his aura emanating from them, his screen appearing.
[you have forged two adept tier short swords through the forging technique of Irin, would you give them a name?] it asked.
Tunde felt the relic humming with pleasure on his right hand, a soft smile on his face.
“Void edge” he whispered.
[you have named short swords void edge] Ifa wrote back.