About 14 years after the man began his trials his looks started to fade again. He wasn’t quite so goblin faced as when he’d emerged 14 years prior, but his hair was thin and falling, his skin clung loosely to his old bones and his body hunched over in a similar posture to the one he’d just had.
He stood in a field of fake enemies dancing around arrows and dodging through sword strikes while elegantly and gently sliding his blade against the weak points in the false enemies’ armour. The elegance looked almost out of place with the body performing the motions. In a second the simulation froze, and the man stopped mid-swing.
“Archive? Are you lagging the program doing something unnecessary again?”
[No, I paused the trial intentionally. We have a visitor?]
“Again? Just accept their offering and move on.”
[No, I mean someone has found our cave]
“And I should care because?”
[It’s a female]
“Really?”
The look in his eyes was unmistakable
“Is she hot?”
[She’s a child]
“Compared to us so is every one, that doesn’t answer my question.”
[In another few years perhaps she will be, she has promising features, but nothing is guaranteed.]
“I’m going to go see what she wants, keep the trial paused until I return… also prepare the oldest raggetiest robe you can find.”
[As you will.]
The door to the room appeared before him and he began to walk the halls. Predicting where he’d pass by a robotic arm handed him the clothes he asked for and he donned them as the false clothes he’d been wearing previously disappeared into particles of light.
He walked on and found the door leading out into the cave a massive metal door that held the appearance of a boulder from the outside. On the other side was a girl no older than 18, short, with the appearance of only just being old enough to have her parents’ permission to leave the house on her own.
She stood before the boulder in the back of the deep dark cave eying the rock with suspicion.
“Archive hide all the creepy things I’m inviting her in.”
In response to his words, a faint rumbling echoed from down the halls and the sound of old creaking metal scraping metal resounded faintly from down the cavernous echoing halls. He walked quietly up to a small dusty monitor and began typing into the forgotten keyboard a list of commands.
After a few moments of clacking away at the keyboard, the door began to move, and the stone began to sink. The girl jumped back in surprise as she began peering into the opening in the back of the cave. There she saw the old goblin man creepily grinning at her like an old man at the beach.
Without thinking she instinctively moved and slashed his arm off with her sword. No blood sprayed and his thin bony arm fell to the ground soundlessly a thick black ooze began welling up from the wound and he clicked his tongue.
The lack of a response sent a chill down her spine and she moved again to swing her blade at his head. But this time he moved his other goblin hand to catch the blade between his two old frail looking goblin fingers comically holding the sword perfectly in place as the dumbfounded girl stood marvelling. Thereafter the first word was spoken since they met face to face.
“Archive.”
At just his word a robotic arm rose up from the ground lifting his severed arm and pressing it up to the stump left on his shoulder. The black ooze met with the ooze of the arm and as if it had musculature of its own grabbed on and began dragging itself back together. Loud heart wrenching crunching noises filled the echoing chamber as his arm mended the wound.
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His gaze began piercing into her with an appraising look, as though he were seeing right through her. His change in gaze unsettled the girl and she began trying to wretch the sword out from his grip. He twisted his wrist to better inspect the sword causing the girl who refused to let go to swing like a rag doll over to his side.
He eyed the blade up and down before giving a dissatisfied, “feh!” and tossing the blade girl and all with a flick of his wrist. He turned around and moved to close the door when the girl stood up and addressed him personally.
“Wait. Are you the old hermit that trains the heroes that descend from this mountain every century or so?”
He blinked in astonishment before letting out a strange grin that filled the girl’s heart with unease. She trembled under his gaze holding back the urge to attack again until he responds.
“I am. Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes, my home is in danger, and I need the strength to protect it.”
“Why not just wait out the century until the next hero arrives, I was busy tinkering with my artefacts before you arrived you know. I’m very busy preparing to train the next hero you know.”
His uncaring grin pierced into her heart and chipped at her resolve. She knew there must have been a reason heroes only appeared in the times in which they did but she also knew many have come to the mountain before to implore the old hermit for strength.
“Please, teach me your ways.”
She bowed her head low to the ground setting her sword in front of her. The act of submission pleased the old man, and he began to approach her. A single elongated fingernail from his gross thin goblin fingers pierced the skin of her forehead and in surprise, she jumped back holding her forehead in fear.
“W-what are you?”
“I have decided. I will train you… if-”
“If?”
“If you descend the mountain and bring me back some proper food and clothes, those ungrateful ‘heroes’ of the previous generations merely took my knowledge and techniques and ran off, no gratitude whatsoever.”
“What?”
“Just look at the state I’m in, they’ve left me in rags, I’m all skin and bones.”
“O-Ok, I’ll go at once.”
“Ah before you go.”
He snapped his fingers and an intricately designed blade from his rubbish bin fell into his hands, it had a terrible balance and was covered in detail to the point of being ugly.
“Take this.”
“For the food?”
“No, for free I don’t want it.”
She bowed her head one last time and turned away.
“I’ll be back by tomorrow at noon, you won’t hunger long.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She stepped back leaving her sword in the entrance to his home. As she disappeared out into the cave, he closed the door leaving the sword on the ground. He turned to walk off down the hall and a robotic arm took the sword and placed it on a nearby desk, where after a metal pipe descended from the ceiling and began washing the black ooze that clung to the blade off.
The man walked down the hall for a minute before coming to a library, he walked up to three separate shelves and took three specific books from the shelves before walking into a backroom and setting up the three books on their own respective stands on a workbench.
Thereafter he walked up to the large forge in the back of the room and began speaking.
“Archive, get me the ingredients listed on the page from the offering room shelves my goggles and my smithing hammer.”
[As you will.]
There in the forge, he spent the rest of the day tinkering and reading, the sound of his hammer rhythmically working the metal, the smell of the burning coals filling the room, the sight of the old goblin man hopping around to work on different parts of the piece at the same time.
Hammering out the old swords into flat sheets of steel scraping rust into a box and firing up the forge to make some crucible steel. Throwing shards of broken glass into the crucible with the rust and some leaves from a potted plant in the room before sealing the crucible with clay and throwing it into the fire.
Meanwhile, with the swords, he was bending and shaping he began to form intricate designs. From the middle book he was searching through what designs he wanted from the first he reminded himself what he needed to forge and from the third, he began thinking up designs.
Throughout the night he was turning the steel into crude shapes before dissatisfyingly hammering the shape back into a ball and starting over. Once he got a base shape that satisfied him, he left it as a crude model of what he was planning to achieve and got his crucible out from the fire. He let it cool for about an hour before gently chipping away at the clay and peering into the crucible with a smile.
“Perfection.”
He smiled from ear-to-ear dancing about like a happy little goblin who’d just found a shiny stone on the floor before throwing the crucible into the ground shattering it and leaving the ball of unformed steel to skitter across the ground.
Thus, he spent his time heating cooling and reheating the steel ball, hammering it into shape and very carefully watching his creation take shape, slowly and steadily he worked nonstop until the hour when his archive alerted him.
[The girl has returned]