The walk isn't long. Just a short trip south, to arrive at a building barely around a corner off the shopping street, hiding behind what looks like a clothing store. It's another stone building, which is normal for a blacksmith, I guess.

I pull to a stop behind Eryk and Patrick, they actually didn't carry me for once, either because it wasn't that far, or maybe because they didn't want to get their clothes dirty today. What really catches my eye though, is the sign, engraved into a large sheet of metal. I can actually read the words there.

I have to sound them out a little. "Ebock... blacksmith..." I look up at Eryk. "Ebock? Is it related to the refinery?"

"More or less, my great uncle Ebock founded them both," Eryk explains, approaching the front door. I follow on his heels, heading into the building. Unlike Gremory's, the door opens into a shop area. It only takes a glance to see all sorts of stuff on display, everything from common tools like pots, pans, and lanterns, to a few swords mounted on the walls, and... I stop on something unfamiliar. Walking over, I inspect it more closely. It's a small ring of metal, a little like the one we were just working with back at the refinery.

However, that's the only similarity. Instead of copper, this metal ring is made of gleaming silver so bright and shiny that I lean side to side, watching the sunlight through the windows trace over its surface. The curve is so smooth and thin, it must have been cast, and it actually makes more than a complete circle, both ends slipping past each other with little round balls on the very end of the metal. The overall size is maybe twice the thickness of my forearm, with the metal itself hardly as thick as my finger.

"Aria, over here," Eryk calls.

"But it's so shiny," are the first words out of my mouth.

"It's- what?" By the time I manage to drag my gaze from the shiny thing, Eryk is already right behind me. "Pfff," he laughs, "girls will be girls, even you."

"Huh?" I don't understand.

"Come on," he calls again, with a pat on my head, and I follow him this time, over to the shop counter. Besides us, there is one customer, standing at the counter and arguing about something with the employee behind it.

"I'm telling you, it broke way too easily," he's saying when I listen. There's a deep metallic jangling sound as he goes on. "The workmanship was shoddy!"

"A chain made in our shop would never break like that," the man behind the counter argues back. "That's why you shouldn't buy from shady merchants.

"But it has your maker's mark!" the customer exclaims. I shuffle out to the side to get a better look past him. He's holding up a metal chain, links shaking and ringing as they move against one another. As he mentioned, there's one part where a link in the chain broke. Whatever did it was really strong, because the thick iron link is completely torn in half.

What could possibly do that to thick links of iron? What was he using the chain for anyway? I have to push away my curiosity, we're here for our own order and I don't want to hold Eryk up. But after another tick of waiting for the angry customer, Patrick sighs. I... think I'm not the one who's going to be holding us up here.

A few more ticks pass, the same arguments going back and forth between the customer and employee. This isn't going anywhere.

Still, if his chain was made here and it broke, why is the shopkeeper so sure it isn't their fault? The chain did break... I wave for Eryk to kneel so I can ask him about it in a whisper, not wanting to draw any attention.

"No way, you'd have to try lifting an elka to break one of those chains," he replies immediately. Aren't those the size of a small building?

"Oh." I go quiet, realizing the ridiculous amount of weight that would require. Wait no, that's not the point. However he did it, he did break that chain. "What could he possibly do with it to break it then?"

"It's probably a fake, can't take nearly as much weight," Eryk explains.

"Fake? How do you fake iron?"

"No, I mean it was probably made by a different smith. Didn't work the metal as well, didn't shape it as well, so it's not as strong," he whispers.

"But he said it has the right mark," I point out.

"Those aren't hard to fake," Eryk shrugs. "If you just copy the real one, most people won't be able to tell the difference."

"Then there's no way to know for sure?" I ask.

"Not really, but like I said, if it broke, it wasn't actually made here."

"Mmm," I grumble. I don't like the idea that there's no way to tell for sure. Eryk might know that, but this man clearly doesn't. I try again. "So, you said that it has to do with shaping the metal? Wouldn't you be able to point out the issues with the shape?"

"I doubt it." He shakes his head. "It has to do with the exact treatment of the metal when forging and how it forms the structure of the metal itself. I only know about the basic theory, I wouldn't even know where to start trying to pinpoint the exact differences by eye, if they're visible at all."

I lower my head, disappointed that there's no better way of telling things like this apart. Maybe if the marks were made in some special way that couldn't be duplicated, or they could be checked somehow, but they're just engraved in the metal. Tiny pictures that anyone could sort of copy, at least well enough that most people can't tell the difference.

"Hey, what're you two whispering about over here?" Patrick asks as he crouches down just behind us.

"Aria was asking if there's any way to tell apart goods like these to find where they're made."

"What, she can't do that?" We both turn to look at him. Why would I be able to do that? "Hey, she picked apart a crate of ore like it was nothing," he says with a shrug.

I crack a somewhat nervous grin. He knows I'm weird and can do things, but doesn't know any of the details. "Uhh, it... doesn't really work like that."

"No? I thought you could at least tell what stuff was made of, huh." Well, his assumption isn't entirely wrong, but it only works for certain materials like mollite, or if I really want, I can check them with mana I guess.

"Well, sort of," I admit, "but that still wouldn't help me tell what's wrong with a single piece of metal like that. The best I could tell you is that it's iron." Which is obvious just looking at it. Patrick shrugs his huge shoulders.

We end up waiting a little while longer before the angry man finally gives up. He spins around, glaring angrily at all of us, and even scoffing at me, before he storms out. He even makes a point to shove right through Eryk and me so we have to move out of the way. I have to bat away the swinging chain-

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Oh.

He finishes storming out of the before I recover from the shock enough to tell Eryk, "There was mollite mixed into that metal." His eyes only go wide for a moment, before he rushes out of the shop after the man.

I stand there, blinking a few times at the far wall. I thought no one mixed metals together. I thought we were the only ones working on this.

Eryk returns a short time later, carrying the broken chain. He drops it into my hands, but looks past me and addresses the man at the counter. "Hey Collin, is Ebbin around?"

I turn to look over my shoulder. Collin is glancing between me and Eryk as he answers. "Yeah, he should be out of the back soon. Who's the girl?" I finish turning around and look at the man as he starts to grin. "Don't tell me you finally gave up." That's when I notice, his dark hair isn't black or brown, it's actually dark green. Shona? No, it isn't colorful enough, half? Besides that, he's really young, just barely an adult. The grin makes him look kind of weird though. Like he should be good looking, but instead he's just kind of... annoying- isn't quite right. Has Claire taught me a word for it yet?

"You can't give up on things you never try," Eryk responds with a roll of his eyes. Then he scoops the chain back out of my hands and throws it down on the counter with a bit more force than I expected, and I jump a little from the loud metal bang. Even Collin flinches a little. "We have actual important things to talk to Ebbin about. How long until he's done?"

He shrugs, half looking away like he's... pouting? "Should be done any time now," he answers with a distinctly resentful grumble in his voice.

"Umm, Eryk? How do you, uhh, know each?" I ask, totally lost by the weirdly unfriendly attitudes of both men, for no clear reason.

"Collin's my third cousin," he answers.

"You have more than one cousin?" I ask. How does that relate to them not liking each other?

Eryk grins and says, "Yes, I have more than one cousin." For some reason, even Collin looks amused.

"So who is she anyway?" Collin asks again after a pause. "You know you shouldn't be dragging peasants into our shop. It's bad for business."

Still not answering his question, Eryk actually sneers at him a little. "You don't get to complain about that until you can find another supplier. One that that doesn't make shit like this." He rattles the chain on the counter. Collin looks lost for a moment, before Eryk explains. "They cut mollite into their iron."

Collin scoffs immediately. "Even if they did, how could you tell?"

"I can tell. If you really need to be sure, Ebbin could check it. I'd ask you, but..." Eryk leaves it there, Collin's face flushing red. Then he crosses his arms with a loud 'hmph!' and just stands there, refusing to speak.

"I fear for this place when he takes over." I barely pick up Patrick speaking, a whisper to himself. Slowly drawing myself away from the tense situation at the front counter, I look around the store a little more. I don't look at anything too close, but I do notice an employee I missed, off among the shelves, organizing a box of something I don't recognize. Another customer comes in too, so I use the same shelves to keep out of their sight while they go and talk to Collin. Then a door in the back of the shop opens up, drawing our attention. I quickly head to the counter and rejoin Eryk.

"Oh, hey Eryk," calls the new man, a bit too loudly. I can tell at a glance that he's a blacksmith, he has the thick, powerful muscles of one. Which are completely visible because he isn't wearing a shirt. Do blacksmiths have something against shirts?

He's definitely not as impressive as Gremory, standing surprisingly short, a little shorter than even Eryk, who isn't that tall himself. He's a little older, maybe in his thirties. Patrick towers over both of them as the blacksmith uses one hand to vault straight over the counter. I just stare after the unexpected maneuver.

"Good to see you, Ebbin."

I keep staring as the man walks right up to Eryk, clapping him heavily on the shoulder, enough to make Eryk flinch slightly. He has strangely long hair for a man, completely black like Eryk's, but falling in big messy waves to the top of his thick shoulders.

"What brings you here today? With Patrick too?" He sweeps his gaze across them, completely missing me because I'm below his line of sight.

"Two things. Can we talk in your workshop?"

"Sure, sure." He waves a hand and proceeds straight back toward the door, vaulting the counter again on his way. I hesitate at Eryk's side, completely lost here. Then Eryk starts to walk, not straight toward the counter, but circling around instead. I just follow him so I don't accidentally do anything wrong in this strange situation.

Once we're all in Ebbin's workshop, forge to one side, counters with crates and tools of various types scattered through the rest of the room, the blacksmith finally notices me. His eyes pause on me for a moment, my breath catching. I have no idea what to expect from such a strange man.

Then he moves on without addressing me at all. Huh?

"So, two things?" he asks. "First would be that?" He points out the chain Eryk's holding, so Eryk passes it over.

"Uck," he makes a weird scoffing sound. "A fake," he says after just a glance.

"More to it than that," Eryk points out the broken link. "Look closer. Can you tell?"

Ebbin does so, wandering closer to the fire as he peers closely at the broken part of the chain. He takes some time, staring intently without even moving, before finally looking back to Eryk. "Those shitters, they're tainting their metal. How'd you even find this?"

"You had a customer earlier, got scammed into buying it by a shady merchant. I took it off his hands for cheap so I could show you."

"Alright, but why should I care? It's just a fake," Ebbin asks while passing the chain back to Eryk.

"Oh, it doesn't matter to you," Eryk chuckles. "Just some stuff going on with my competition," then he holds the chain right back out for Ebbin. "I wanted to know if you could figure out who made this. Can you tell anything from the workmanship?"

"The maker?" He doesn't take the chain back from Eryk, but stares at it for a long moment. "That's a real hard one. Best guess, Lance, Vik, or Rolph. You know what? Forget Rolph. I don't think he makes chain, and he'd never touch crap like this. I'm not even convinced he wouldn't notice it if his supplier slipped him tainted stock." Then he waves a hand. "And you know, it could even be from out of town."

"Yeah, I know. I just need to check things out because it relates to the other refineries. Unless it's a coincidence, which I highly doubt, they've caught onto the fact that we're up to something, but if this is their response, they're completely misinterpreting what we're doing. None of that concerns you though, not yet anyway."

"Mm," Ebbin just nods. I'm not sure I follow Eryk entirely. Other refineries are mixing metals together because we are? Even though it makes theirs worse? And how do they even know what we're doing? But Eryk goes on without stopping.

"Anyway, that's not what we originally came here for. I wanted to put in an order." As he speaks, the serious look in his eyes disappears, replaced by excitement.

"Better be something good this time, that mock up you wanted was awful. Slapped together work like that should be burned." Ebbin crosses his arms and shakes his head at the whole thing.

"Oh don't worry, it was just a proof of concept, we figured out what we needed from it." Eryk's grin widens, which draws a curious look from Ebbin. Even Patrick is starting to smile. "We'd like another coil, same dimensions as the other, but this time, we would like you to make it out of copper thread."

"Pff!" Ebbin snorts, then laughs a few big belly laughs. "Thought you said pounding metal that thin was unrealistic?" A wide grin matching Eryk and Patrick's spreads over his face as well. His eyes almost glow with uncontained excitement. "Remember, this is your request, I'm gonna make a damn masterpiece."

Meanwhile, I watch all of this, absolutely dumbfounded. Why are they so stuck on the idea of copper thread anyway? What if it makes the lightning too powerful? I almost want to speak up, but they all look way too excited...

So for now, I just keep quiet and let them make the coil however they want. If it's too powerful, we can just step it down some. Or maybe we could make the entire thing smaller? If we could get the effect we need out of a coil a fraction of the size of our current one, then why not? It would be easier to transport and store, and might not need such large magnets either. They would also need less copper, which would make them cheaper and faster to make...

The more I think about this, the more benefits I see. I guess that's why they're all so excited?