Early in the morning the city of Dvalfgar seemed like a different place. If it weren't for merchants and few people occasionally walking around, you might think the whole place was deserted. Aleyn strode through the city with a lot more ease than she did yesterday, it was a welcome surprise to her early morning as trying to get through the crowds wasn't amongst her favorite hobbies.
As she got to Camedyrs work shop to her surprise the doors were closed. She took a hold of the handles and to her surprise the closed door slid open without much trouble.
"Is the place open or is it closed? I can't tell." she thought to herself.
Shrugging she walked inside, she was told to be there early so it should be fine to enter right?
The front shop was empty of people, but the door to the forge was half open and you could hear impact of metal hitting metal so someone was definitely in.
When she entered the workshop, she didn't see anyone around but the forge was definitely on and blowing and the sound was louder. She took a moment to look around and noticed that the noise was coming from the opposite side of the forge. As she got around the forge she spotted a large amount of people working on the anvils and the forge while Mr muscle lump himself was overseeing them all yelling out instructions.
He walked up to one of the people hitting a bar of metal.
"COME ON! Hit it like you mean it! It ain't going to turn in to anything at that rate!
She walked behind Camedyr who was yelling and genuinely instructing the students. She looked past him to see what the worker was actually doing.
The person was hammering on a bar of metal which refused to be molded, it looked like normal steel yet the student was barely getting it to shape.
"What is that?" She asked.
Camedyr had not noticed her enter and approach so he turned around to see.
"Ah You're here girl. Now that, that right there is just normal hardened steel."
"Hardened?" She questioned.
"Pff. I ain't going to explain ya your first assignment." He gave a chuckle as he answered.
"Boy's once you've turned that bar in to your hammer take a break. And you Second rankers once you've Gotten a proper fusion you can also take a break. I'm gonna have a chat with little girl here in my office. Come Aleyn."
Camedyr yelled his instructions and all of the students behind the forge took a moment to acknowledge it with a yell.
Camedyr and Aleyn went back to the front shop and entered a room behind the counter which had stairs leading up to a second floor. This confused Aleyn as there was nothing between the them and the ceiling in the workshop, but when she looked up she noticed there was a small room on top of her.
Camedyr had build an office above everything. You could see the inside of the whole building from his office windows. Clever design.
The office itself was very simple, there was a table and a couple of drawers around the table, with a huge chair behind it.
"Had a good rest yea?" Camedyr said as he sat down
"Yes."
Camedyr lifted up a piece of chest armor on the table which was very familiar to her. She had in fact seen it just yesterday as she hammered it on the anvil. Her rank four exam.
"As much as I heard much about you from Cybil already. Just using four hours to make that set is quite something. Quality is so-so but it passes definitely. "
Aleyn stood still and listened to the huge old man talk.
"I see a lot to improve though, but hey that's why you're here ye?."
"Definitely." she agreed and after a brief pause continued.
"Can I ask some questions.?" she asked.
"Sure, go on."
"Could you explain the rest of the ranks? Your overseer guy didn't bother."
Camedyr changed his expression from happy teacher to more of a unimpressed employer and sighed.
"That's one thing I don't like about this line of work. Even if you have a reason to be proud it doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it."
"Anyway, the Ranks which I oversee are what differentiate blacksmiths." He started explaining.
The simple explanation for the ranks went as so.
Rank three – precious metals. Learning to work with high quality goods.
Rank two – Fusion. Fusing metal with high quality ingredients and crystals.
Rank one –Enchanting. Applying magical essence or power in to the previous ranks work.
The first five ranks used the front of the forge while the last three had the back all for themselves, splitting the shop in two.
"So what do the exams look like for these ranks? She eagerly asked.
Camedyr narrowed his eyes on Aleyn.
"Well.. first let me ask you this.. which metals have you worked with?"
She ran through the metals she could remember from Cybils work shop.
"Iron, copper, bronze, tin and steel. Why?"
Camedyr's kept looking at her, he didn't even blink as he explained.
"Not to sound like Coifus from yesterday, but you really shouldn't bother thing about the next exams yet. The stuff I want you to work with are hard, even with all the praise I've heard about you I'm confident it will take you some time to get comfortable with them." He looked straight in to her eyes and looked sincere.
Having the big guy that was one of the worlds known people act so sincere to her made her resign her herself to following his flow.
"Alright boss... I can call you boss right or do I need to say master like everyone?"
"Call me anything you want, I'm not forcing anyone to call me master here." he said with a chuckle as he finally relaxed.
"Okay boss. So another question, why is the place so empty. When I worked at Cybil's place everyone was there and working before the sun rose."
Camedyr gave a weird expression, but then showed some realization.
"Oh I get it. Tell me Aleyn, what do you think this place is?" he leaned back in his chair as he asked her.
"That's a weird question, This place is a blacksmiths workshop." she answered without hesitation.
Camedyr chuckled.
"Well you're not wrong, it is blacksmiths workshop." He turned his head to look at the people working under them.
"But first and foremost, this place is a school. We don't have a schedule, but we have rules and requirements. Sometimes people order things and we assign the proper rank to make them, but those who stay here just for work are kicked away from the ranks fast and precisely."
He took a breather and continued
"It's not hard to see the difference between someone who wants to work and someone who wants to improve. I don't give time tables, but if you want to get work done it's of course best to come early."
He took another breather and continued.
"The work difference between every rank after the fourth doubles, most people don't leave the workshop until they're in their forties if they arrive when they're young. Though some I employ as overseers or assistants in other cities."
Aleyn after having gotten the whole picture was thoroughly impressed. Keeping the place as a school even when he had gathered such fame was very admirable. Or perhaps it was actually because of the fame that he kept it as a school.
Aleyn fixed her dumbstruck face as she still had one thing to ask.
"And for my last question, where do I start today?" she gave a smile with the obvious silly question.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Ah yes." he took his eyes off of the window.
Camedyr started digging through the tables drawers.
"Here they are!" he claimed.
He picked up a parcel and unrolled it on the table. It was filled with cards which had writing on them.
He shuffled through the cards, looking for specific ones and picked them up. After finding them Camedyr handed four cards to Aleyn who took them in her hands and took a look.
The cards all had few lines of text on them like.
"Properties of heated precious metals."
"Properties of precious metals."
Camedyr took a look at her reading the cards.
"You know what these are right?"
"They sound like book titles." she answered unsurely.
"Exactly, go to the library and give those to the clerk. They know what to do. Once you got the books start reading and after you're done come back here and find me."
With nothing more to hear she stood up and replied and left for the library.
"Understood."
The city's library was located south west side of the city, just south of the adventurers hall and her inn. She had walked past the building a few times so she knew where she had to go.
The library itself stood out from most of the buildings around it, there were a few other buildings that shared it's characteristics but the library was the only one which was located in the south western area.
What made the library building stand out? It was made of rock like everything else, however it wasn't build per say. It was way more appropriate to say it was originally carved from the mountain, there were no bricks or building components, the whole building was a rock that was carved from the mountain. The building looked like a mountain that grew straight from the floor as it shared its rocky colour, starting wide and becoming thinner as it grew up all the way to the peak of the so called mountain, some windows adorned it and showed the rooms inside.
It had weathered the years, however some additions had to be made to accommodate newer books and research so its original glorious carved structure now had some brick building extensions around it but they didn't take away the fact that the building itself was eye catching. A huge crack was carved in to the middle of the mountain with stairs leading into it and at the end of the stairs there was a wooden door which was unnecessarily large.
Aleyn stood for a few moments admiring the unique architecture. Having had enough of the unnatural mountain she started climbing the uneven stairs towards the door.
As she opened the door she was pleasantly surprised to find that the door itself wasn't as heavy as it appeared and opened easily. She stepped inside, but what waited inside looked way more impressive than what she had just witnessed outside.
Looking up you could see that the inside wasn't as big as the outside would make you think. When you looked straight inside from the door you could see a huge corridor, on the sides of the corridor you could see that the place only had two floors which looked like a balconies overlooking the corridor.
The corridor's sides had alcoves which looked like cave entrances, but unlike any actual cave they had book cases and drawers inside of them which reached the ceiling all the way from the floor.
The whole building was quiet, but you could hear the sound of the winds breeze echo through it like in a cave. While she was admiring the interior, she suddenly heard footsteps that echoed around the corridor and something came in to view.
A figure carrying multiple books was walking towards the end of the corridor at a steady pace. At the end of the corridor there was a what looked like a reception area and once they got to it they dropped the books on the desk and went behind.
Aleyn having had enough of the tourism started walking towards the desk. As she walked her footsteps echoed through out the building in an awkward manner. The figure gazed her way but then returned to their pile of books. She tried to walk at a pace which made the least noise, it was a library after all but there was no avoiding some noise as she wasn't a ninja.
She got to the end of the corridor and stood in front of the desk she took a look at the book pile and the person behind it.
A tortoise, that's what she saw. The person behind the desk was a dwarf sized tortoise. They wore a robe over their body, but it didn't hide his obvious body characteristics
Their head held no humane shape or traces on it, their body was completely covered by a dome-shaped shell on their back and their front was covered in a dark green carapace. The person looked old even for a turtle as they had some tufts of white hair on their head and a short white beard coupled with a set of thick glasses on their eyes, completing their old man look.
"Yes?"
The tortoise behind had taken their eye off the books and noticed her.
"Umm, the boss sent me here for these." She said in an unsure manner and handed the cards to the tortoise who took them in their hands and read through them. He gave some glances back and forth between Aleyn and the cards and then handed them back to her.
"Follow.." he ordered in low voice
He started walking at a steady pace towards a door at the back of the room. The door lead to a very dusty staircase which lead downwards and wasn't lit, but there was an unlit torch standing on the wall just behind the door. He picked the torch with one hand and swiped the top of it with the other which created a spark that lit the torch, he proceeded to move down the stairs while Aleyn followed him.
The staircase wasn't long, probably just long enough to move them down to a basement level. As they got to the bottom what awaited them was another much shorter corridor with multiple locked doors. The tortoise walked to a door and dug in to his robes pockets and took out a key ring to open the door in front of him.
Inside the room there were a couple of drawers and a single book case and at the other end of the room was a single table and a single chair behind it. On the walls you could see a three candle holders with fresh candles, each in their respective wall.
The old tortoise went for the book shelf and without much thinking pulled out four specific books, it was as though he knew exactly where they were without looking. He placed the books on the table and started talking in his low voice.
"Rules... Books don't go out of this room. You're not allowed to pick up anything else out of the drawers or the bookshelves. If we find that you ruined any of these books and didn't report it, you will be reported to the owner and lose your reading privileges.
Once the candles are lit you must leave when they run out of steam, less of a rule just that the only ventilation is that door we came from and the air is horrible down here.
That is all, if you don't leave before the candles run out I will personally come here to escort you out. I will know when they run out." he calmly and slowly explained the rules in his low voice.
Aleyn nodded and the old tortoise started to light up the candles.
"You may start." was the last thing he said before leaving and closing the door slightly. His foot steps echoed loudly as he left.
Aleyn sat down on the chair and took a look at the books and thought about which one to start with as the echoes of the foot steps faded.