JC, short for Jameson Carter, was at the end of his apprenticeship. It had been 8 long years since he started, and it was all coming to a very satisfying end. All the late nights and what seemed like menial work had led up to him finally being able to claim the title of smith. He had learned a lot during his time working for his master and had grown a lot as well. He was now near 6’4 and a very solid 250 lbs of muscle, a far cry from the underweight 4’6 10-year-old he had been when first started his apprenticeship. The dirty blonde hair from his younger years had slowly turned to a dark brown over the years but his bright green blue eyes had never changed. He wasn’t a master smith by any means, but he had just passed his master’s final test by creating a set of chain mail, a helmet, greaves, a sword, and shield. His master’s specialty was arms and armor after all. The set of armor was deemed acceptable by the military for equipment to be given out to the sergeants which essentially meant it was decent quality but by no means good.
Besides having what he considered a specialty in arms and armor, JC was also intimately familiar in the standard smithing that a country town like Towald, the one he lived in, really needed. He had become a subject matter expert on making nails, horseshoes, plows, and other small items needed by those that primarily farmed for a living. He could churn many of those out over the course of the day and that is typically what he did in order to free his master up for specialty orders that occasionally came in.
JC’s master, Ronald, was an interesting man. He was in his mid-40’s with salt and pepper hair close cut to his head. He had sharp features and intense eyes, always scanning his surroundings. He was a handsome man and many a woman in the town had tried their hands at luring the smith to their skirts, but Ronald never fell to their womanly charms. His sense of humor was extremely vulgar, which he had passed onto JC, but he had learned to reign it in when customers around. The most striking thing about his master though was his build. The man was a mountain of compact muscle from years of swinging a hammer and he stood at 6’5 towering over pretty much everyone just edging out JC himself. The average height in the town of 1,000 was approximately 5’9 with maybe one man standing at 6’.
His master’s size had led to him being voluntold to join the local baron’s military forces when he was 18, just as he finished his apprenticeship to the local blacksmith. From there he was found by the King’s forces during a border skirmish where he distinguished himself by leading a charge into a shield wall that changed the tide of the battle. After that battle Ronald was recruited to be a part of the White Company, the Kings personal guards and elite soldiers of the kingdom. He served with the White Company for 5 years and finally retired from the military at the young age of 25 having served in several conflicts at various posts across the kingdom in different roles. His master had never left behind blacksmithing throughout his time though and had dual roles in the military as a blacksmith and whatever his current actual assignment was. As a result of his time in the military and movement around the kingdom he had a wide variety of experience and a wide network of contacts that came to him for special projects.
His master had found JC, or rather JC had found him when JC was about 10. JC had come into town with a merchant as his “assistant”. In reality, JC had done the brunt of the work for the fat man, moving all of his products and selling them for him while the merchant had relaxed in the wagon deep in the wineskin, he always had at with him. The merchant was a cruel but practical man. If JC had done well, he would feed and even sometimes give him a small cut, and if he didn’t do well there would be a beating for motivation, but never so far as making JC ineffective at his job. Never disabling him or causing marks that would show to customers or make him unfit for work. Ultimately JC’s situation could have been worse considering the had regular food and a roof over his head, it was better than going back to living on the streets of the capital.
One day JC had been cleaning up after market day and his master merchant had sent him to go buy a new wheel for the wagon from the local smith. JC had made his way to the smithy and approached Ronald without a hint of fear. Most young children were afraid of the man due to his size, deep baritone voice, and reputation. Evidently Ronald had been impressed with JC and the next day had approached the merchant asking if he would be willing to let JC go to become his apprentice. The merchant had not been willing but with a small bribe Ronald had obtained his new and only ever apprentice. JC’s new master provided him with food and shelter, and even allowed JC to take commissions of his own when he was skilled enough, provided all the of the other work for the smithy was done of course. This had allowed JC a new freedom with actual consistent income, the ability to have a real profession, and the ability to grow into his own man.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
On top of becoming a skilled smith, JC had learned a lot of other skills from his master, least among them how to defend himself. One of the first items he had crafted was a dagger, the one he still carried with him every day. His master had told him that a man who carries a weapon must be able to competently use it, otherwise he was only a danger to himself and to others. What was the point in carrying a weapon you couldn’t use? It only invited danger. So, while not working on the day’s tasks at the smithy or completing his own commissions, JC trained with weapons and hand to hand combat. In the last year JC's skill with arms had grown by leaps in bounds. Whether or not he knew it, he was almost as good as him master, only his upbringing kept him humble and made him think he was not. His master had also insisted that by knowing how to use a weapon he would better be able to make it as he would know how accent its strengths and reduce its weaknesses. This had led to JC being trained in every weapon Ronald knew, which considering his vest experience traveling and kingdom was considerable.
Besides the skills in arms and smithing he also had the mercantile skills he had picked up while being the merchant’s assistant. He had learned to read a crowd and a person’s face. He had learned the value of hard work and learned how to barter and trade. He had also learned how to cheat and lie, skills that he hoped he’d never have to use. All these skills though, besides the last two, had come in handy when running the smithy. He always seemed to get the best possible price out of his products and seemed to have a knack for purchasing their raw ore for the lowest price. This had led JC to be put in charge of the purchasing for the smithy, further refining the skills he already had.
The last set of skills that JC had developed under his master were the outdoorsy type. While JC was not over proficient in this area he could at least survive if he was left in the woods. He had in fact done so just the previous year. His master had left him the forest approximately 2 days travel to the west and told JC he’d be back in a month to get him. JC had managed to survive the whole time and had even built himself a fairly robust homestead in the woods in the time his master was gone. JC though had the skills to do so because his master frequently took him into the woods to hunt and enjoyed spending his time off out in nature, so it was not as if JC was left there without any knowledge of how to survive.
JC planned to use all of this knowledge to start his own smithy and dreamed of living a successful if modest life as a smith in a town about 3 days ride away. It was named Riding and was a growing community of 600 that was sorely in need of smith with the next closest one being Ronald. While they may be competition with the several small communities in between that either smithy could service, his master didn’t mind as it would free up some of his time to pay attention to his special-order projects.
One such project he was working on at the moment with the assistance of JC. This project had come from his previous sergeant in the White Company, Jacob Merweather. Jacob had sent a messenger asking for 100 scimitars to be built. These were the weapons primarily used in a kingdom across the sea called Katar. Katar was one of the rivals of the Kingdom of Trent where they lived and had always been a nuisance when it came to dominating the trade in the Sea of Souls. What use the scimitars would be to the White Company was unknown to both Ronald and Jacob, but it wasn’t of concern, an order was an order. The White Company had specifically come to Ronald with this order due to their history together, their trust in him to keep their order secret, and because Ronald was intimately familiar with the scimitar due to having fought several skirmishes with the soldiers of Katar on the seas and islands between the two kingdoms.
Ronald and JC were almost done with the order, and it was due the following day so they worked through the night. They were a little behind because of JC’s final project taking longer than expected. Creating chain mail was a time-consuming task and required finesse that JC sometimes lacked. JC had gotten it done in the end and was now concentrating on helping his master. Around 2 bells past midnight they had finally finished the final sword. Exhausted they both went to bed, sure that they would hear Jacob Merweather knocking on the door bright and early.