The dwarf seemed nervous about handing the hammer to him, his eyes wide and darting from side to side, his hands clenching and unclenching around its haft. “You won’t damage her will you? She’s my masterwork. Losing her would be like losing my very soul.”
Sebastian was immediately interested, “Her? No, I promise I won’t damage your hammer. You made it though? How? Out of what?” he tugged out his notebook and flipped it open before handing it to the dwarf in exchange for the hammer, “Can you make this? How long would it take to make this if you can?” He started inspecting the hammer much closer, it was heavy, but not as heavy as he expected and he suspected that it might have something to do with its perfect balance. He started to plot out ways to get it to work for anyone without draining the enchantment too fast the way that Sam’s would. He paused when he saw the dwarf flipping back and forth in his notebook with a strange expression that seemed equal parts confusion and concern. “What? Too complicated? I can probably cut some of it out, but too much and the magic will bleed out too fast. Oh, I’m sorry, what was your name? And what do you want your hammer to do exactly? Forgefire is nice and all, but I can probably do better.”
The dwarf glanced at him and then back to the notebook, “Well we can actually make something like this pretty easily with some of the newer techniques we have, I’m just not sure why you want a metal statue, or why you would use steel for it, or if you are actually sane. My name is Jake though, and since I’m still not convinced if you are playing games with me or not, I’ll let you choose, just don’t hurt my Magda, or I will have to hurt you.”
Sebastian nodded eagerly, “Yes, yes, don’t hurt the hammer, I got it, you can make it though? How long would it take? I noted down steel because it is basically the strongest thing to use on the surface, there are a few alloys that require a lot of money, but most people use steel or iron. If you know of something better and I can get it cheap, or perhaps in trade for a powerfully enchanted hammer? You don’t use this hammer for working metal do you? It’s only a weapon right?”
Jake shook his head, “No, wrong size, shape, and weight for any real work. I guess I can arrange to have this built, but it won’t be steel. Some of these parts are simply too small to accurately make out of steel while retaining an acceptable amount of resiliency.”
Sebastian nodded again, “Okay, I think I have it now. Uh,” he looked around, “Can we maybe go somewhere in here that has a few less dead bodies?” They didn’t have to go very far to find a clear room, Jake spent the entire time flipping through Sebastian’s notebook and after a few quick questions, was even noting things down on it and making changes here and there. He also wasn’t letting Sebastian get more than an arms distance away while he had the hammer.
When they settled down again, Sebastian went into what Sarah had taken to calling his enchanting mode, so focused on the magic that he sometimes neglected things like blinking. He loosed his hold on the magic and revelled in its soothing warmth as it roared through his system. At least, until it hit his injured hand and reminded him with a jolt of molten agony that he had injured it. He clenched his jaw in an effort to bite back the scream trying to claw its way out of his throat, and once again, simply had to endure the excruciating pain until the magic was done. A few minutes later, each of which feeling like a small eternity spent with his hand stuck in a fire, and the enchantment was done. He was surprised at how quickly the hammer took the magic in though, and couldn’t help but marvel at how the flowing lines that typically reshaped the item to fit their own design had instead conformed to fit the geometric perfection the hammer already had. The faint silver trails blended into the surface of the already silvery hammer and seemed to add an extra level of depth to it.
Sebastian took a deep breath, his focus returning to the room just in time to hear Sarah speaking about him. “Why are we just blindly going along with his decisions? I mean just the other day he nearly blew off his own hand, and he was making a habit of leaping off of tall buildings. Don’t get me wrong, I lo-love him, but when he starts experimenting with magic it isn’t usually very safe to be around him, and just letting him do what he wants, instead of getting Jake to take us to one of their seals so we can try and get out of here doesn’t make sense to me!” She stomped her foot a little towards the end there, and Sebastian started laughing.
Everyone turned to stare at him, Sarah turning bright red with embarrassment. “Well she isn’t wrong, I can admit my own failings. I’m not a leader, and I have a terrible habit of not really thinking about the consequences before I start playing with enchantments. Put an intellectual challenge or opportunity in front of me and there are pretty good odds that I might forget to feed myself for a few days.” He shrugged, “It’s also easier to take criticism from a girl that pairs it with a confession of love.” He held up the hammer with a grin, “I give you Magda Steelbreaker! Both sides do something different, and the whole thing has been reinforced. Here try it out, tell me what you think.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jake took the hammer from him a bit suspiciously, giving it a close inspection before he gave it a light swing. When the hammer struck the ground he yelped a bit in surprise at the concussive thump and was shocked when he saw the ground shattered around the hammer head. A little bit shakily he spun the hammer around and looked at Sebastian as if asking for permission before bringing it back down again next to the cracked part of the floor. This time the sound was muffled and nothing seemed to happen. He looked at Sebastian in confusion. “Again, harder. Same spot.” Sebastian had that madman’s grin on his face that was starting to terrify Sarah a little bit.
Jake of course had only just met Sebastian and had no idea how insane things had gotten shortly after that grin had made its appearance, and promptly smashed the hammer down on the same spot he had just hit. They all were stunned at the sudden blast of heat that washed over them as soon as the hammer struck home. There was now a spot on the floor glowing a fierce cherry red and putting off heat like a bonfire. Sebastian just started to explain, ignoring Sarah’s quiet muttering that sounded suspiciously like ‘thank the gods it didn’t explode.’
“Honestly what I’m best at is manipulating kinetic energy, it’s what I have spent most of my time studying and I find it really efficient in mana use. So what I did was make the hammer double kinetic energy, the more you put in the bigger the effect. The side that cracked the ground will release half of the doubled energy in an erratic pulse that should break nearly anything you hit, while leaving the other half alone so that it feels like hitting something normally. The other side infuses around three fourths of the energy into the target hit, reducing the strength of the actual blow, but speeding up their molecules where you hit them, generating a lot of localized heat. The enchantment is really efficient and should be able to keep itself charged up as long as you aren’t constantly using it for days on end. I figure a day left alone for a day of fighting depending on how intense the fight is will keep it topped off.”
Jake looked dumbfounded, magic hadn’t ever been more than a fairy tale for him right up until Sebastian came and shattered everything he thought he knew about the world. When he had first seen the glowing shield, he assumed that it was a new technology, something recovered or modified from the ancestor’s archives. But to take a normal item and simply hold it for a while only to have it suddenly look different and start to do impossible things? Well he was certainly convinced, and all the more interested in crafting this strange human’s statue. Mostly because he wanted to see what he had planned for it.
Sebastian suddenly had another thought, “Is it okay if we keep the weapons we recovered from your friends? I could enchant those too and we will have much better chances of surviving.”
Jake looked conflicted, “I would have to see their bodies first, if they were killed by the reapers the ones who avenged their deaths would be considered worthy of wielding their weapons. If you were the one to kill them though, I would be honor bound as their commander to kill you. Yet, I owe you a great debt for saving my life and gifting me this, enchantment? So it would be best to strike me down now if you took the life of one of my men, at least that way my honor is intact.”
Sebastian shrugged, “Not a problem then, everyone we found was already dead. Not sure what you mean about your honor though, I mean I understand that killing someone you owe your life to would be considered dishonorable, but if that person killed your friends and was the initial cause of your situation, wouldn’t that mean the dishonor falls on the other person? Saving a life you put in danger yourself should really be considered more of a cleaning up your own mess kind of thing. If anything I would say that even though a person saved someone’s life, if they caused the danger in the first place they would be the ones owing a debt still for endangering the other person to start with.”
Jake looked a little perplexed, but seemed to take Sebastian’s speech as an assurance that they didn’t kill any of his men and relaxed. “Then I shall see to that task in a moment, but before I forget,” He flipped to one of the pages in Sebastian’s notebook, “Why is this one different from the others? It doesn’t detail the way to attach it to the primary body either.”
Sebastian looked at it for a second, “Ah, no, I injured my hand, and as a sort of intellectual challenge during our downtime on this little walk I tried to modify the arms of the other idea to fit onto a person, I honestly have no idea how to attach it to a person in a functional way though, nor how to get it to work for anyone other than a mage. It takes too much energy for a normal person to use constantly.”
Jake nodded, “Do you mind if I edit it some? We have developed methods to attach an artificial limb to someone that might be useful here. If you intend for it to be fully functional then we only really have one method you should consider. It is the most painful method, but basically we expose the section of bone that is left on the missing limb and fuse it to a spike of metal, usually a cobalt-chromium-titanium alloy, the flesh is then allowed to regrow around the exposed spike, which usually ends in a knob or socket of sorts that the arm attaches to. It lets the person apply the stress of lifting things to their skeletal system the way they normally would, instead of having to muck about with straps and harnesses.”
Sebastian scratched at his chin while he thought it over, “That sounds fine, I hope I don’t have to ever actually make the thing, but having it completed with a way of attaching it will be nice. I’ll have to find something else to work on when I’m bored though.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden bout of hoarse coughing and a very familiar, very annoyed sounding, voice, “What the devil are we doing in a cave?! Where is that fool boy?!” Some more coughing followed before, “Well?! Boy! Get your arse over here so I can yell at you face to face!”