I stand sweating before the hot forge, tongs in my left hand and hammer in my right, ready to begin. This time I’ve learned, I’m going to do things properly, and my suit of armor will be one to be proud of.

My materials, I must admit, are not of the highest quality. But they’re respectable. For the main plates I have wrought iron, a bit soft, but it’ll be tough enough once I graft on runes of hardness. I’m going to add some steel bands too, just to make sure everything keeps its shape properly. Wish I had more, but can’t be helped.

I begin. My hammer feels a lot more comfortable in my right hand than my left, and I know how to grip it properly now too. The hot iron plate bends under my touch, and mostly in the way I want it too. My mistake last time was desperation. I've been told that metal can sense emotion and resists any dwarf without confidence in his skills.

While I'm not totally convinced this is true, having calm nerves does help me hammer a lot more precisely.

After a solid day's work, the main plates are complete. The next day I affix the leather straps, padding, and chainmail that will link everything together. It's painstaking work, far duller than forging, and I'm a bit worried about the chainmail's quality—it was the cheapest I could get and looks it, with uneven, wide-spaced links.

Still, after two days hard work I can't help but feel proud about my craft. The breastplate is angled to deflect piercing attacks, the visor designed to match the shape of my face for maximum visibility, and I’ve rigged smaller plates to move over the joints for extra protection when I move. From helmet to boot it shines a dark silver.

Now for the runes.

I twist wires of copper and lead into shape, heat, hammer flat. A far easier method than I tried before.

The boots I imbue with lead runes of stability. I don't want to fall on my face anymore. Around the legs and arms I graft copper runes of hardness. Not an ideal metal for it, but better than nothing. I also imbue them with minor slipperiness, for an advantage in grappling.

I save my best for the steel bands under the breastplate though. Along each I graft a poem of integrity, relating the moral meaning of the word to the structural in five stanzas.

Yes, these aren’t the most exciting enchantments. I would prefer to create armor with flames rippling over the surface, that can break steel weapons at a touch, that repels troglodyte arrows back to sender with unerring accuracy. But if I’m ever to get that good I’ll need to stay alive, and stability and structural integrity will go a long way toward ensuring that.

The morning after I finish, it's time to show off.

In the main guildhall right now sit about half the guild's members, eating breakfast and nursing hangovers. The food is not free, of course—paid through guild membership fees which I'll have to start handing over once I'm a runeknight.

Every morning and evening they gather here to swap stories, give and receive advice, boast, brag, crack rude jokes: in short what Guildmaster Wharoth terms 'networking'. I’ve had a few interesting conversations here myself, and a few of them even believe my story about forging my first craft one-handed deep in the caverns.

Though of course I haven’t told them everything.

After their morning meal, the runeknights go about their various businesses. Each has one job or several. Guarding seems to be the most common, along with adjudication in the arenas. Only a few are active in Runethane Thanerzak’s military, though most were in the past—the conflict with Runethane Broderick has been in a lull the last couple of decades.

They earn money. They buy materials. They forge in preparation for the examination for the next degree.

The degrees go from tenth to first, but no runeknight here is higher than third. Each degree an order of magnitude more difficult than the last to ascend to. In the whole of this side of the city, not even two hundred dwarves are of the second degree, and only a dozen are of the first.

My new armor draws some approving nods as I walk up the guildhall to the serving table. It’s nothing compared to the other dwarves’ gear of course, which shimmer with gold and platinum and precious gems, and allow them to accomplish feats I can’t even dream of, but you know what, it’s good enough.

“Not bad,” says one.

“Stability on the boots, always a sensible choice,” says another.

“Might get you to runeknight, with a couple adjustments.”

“My first suit wasn’t half as good. Keep it up.”

I beam with pride. Halfway through breakfast, Guildmaster Wharoth appears and the hall goes quiet. He only has a few dull announcements to make, so I mostly ignore him while I devour my porridge. After he’s finished, though, he beckons me into his office.

“Stay standing, short-beard. How long did you spend on that?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Three days.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s as long as it took.”

He shakes his head in disappointment. “You want to make it to runeknight, you’ll need more patience than that.”

I frown. “The others didn't seem to think it was so bad. Good for a first attempt.”

“For a first attempt.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I hold out my arms and rotate my wrists, examining the iron for any imperfections. I don’t see any.

“Runes are squint. Didn't you even examine them under a lens? Discolored patches. Worst of all that chainmail. Bought, I see, not made. Never buy chainmail.”

“Chainmail takes months to make!” I protest.

“Good chainmail takes years to make. If you want to make it to runeknight, that’s the kind of time you have to put in. Not three measly days.”

“Years! I don’t have that long!”

“Why not?”

“I’ll grow old.”

He pulls an amulet from under his salamander skin apron. It’s bright gold and a cabochon-cut diamond gleams in the center. Etched into the crystal is a long spiraling poem discussing the malleability of mortality.

“Better hurry up and make one of these, then,” he says. “How old do you think I am, boy?”

“I... A hundred, give or take.”

“Three hundred.”

“Three hundred? That’s not possible.”

He laughs. “You miners, you really don’t get to learn much about the world, do you? Miners and shopkeepers, nine tenths of everyone, they get to live to maybe a hundred and fifty. You know how long our Runethane’s been alive?”

“I know he’s been around for a couple hundred years. Of course he has, he’s Runethane.”

“More like a thousand. That’s how long it takes to get that good. And I don’t think there’s a Runeking who isn't over ten thousand. Our Runeking Ulrike is certainly about that.”

My mouth falls open slightly and I’m in too much shock to say anything. Thousands of years of forging? The path to greatness stretches up like a dark staircase above me, on and on, endless. How far up will I have to ascend before I meet my brother? How far up is he? How far up can we make it, before something shoves us off?

“So my point is,” continues the Guildmaster, “That you’ll have to put some more time into your work if you want to join our proper ranks. I hope you weren’t planning on taking your first exam in that.”

“I was just going to try and get a better job. Maybe do some fights in the arenas.”

“Stay away from the arenas for now. A guarding job, maybe you can do.”

“Alright. I’ll save up and put some more steel in this.”

He shakes his head. “Start again from scratch. And make your own chainmail. Blades are allowed in the arenas. I don’t know if you know that.”

“I didn't.”

“Well, you do now. I’ll lend you my linking machine, five silver an hour.”

“That’ll turn you a tidy profit, if I’m going to be spending months on it.”

He shrugs. “If you want to advance at my level, materials aren’t cheap. I’ve got my own ambitions, you know.”

“Okay," I sigh. "I’ll think about it. I’m glad you’re taking an interest in me.”

“Well, you’re an interesting young fellow. It’d be a waste if you got your head chopped off.”

----------------------------------------

I stare at my armor, feeling rather dejected. I’ve hung it on a stand in my room for further examination under a bright light with a magnifying glass I just bought. I sigh deeply as I realize Wharoth was right.

There are discolored patches, big ones, where the iron was heated unevenly. Many of the runes don’t line up correctly. The mistakes are measured in millimeters, but it makes a big difference to the power harmonics. And I can nearly stick my pinky finger through the links of the chainmail.

I sit on the bed and wonder what to do next. My heart sinks at the thought of spending another four months cleaning and teaching kids for barely three silvers a week, but now I’m doubting this armor will get me any work at all.

It’ll be a good practice at being patient, though. Hundreds of years of forging to become Runethane, and thousands more beyond... It’s starting to seem like a silly dream, just the fantasy of some delusional kid to make the long hours down in the mines a fraction more bearable.

Someone knocks on my door. Probably the landlord, my rent is late this month.

“Come in,” I sigh.

It’s not the landlord, it’s Whelt.

“Hey,” he says. “Heard you put together some armor.”

“Yeah.”

“Guildmaster give you his usual criticism, did he?”

“Yeah.”

He gives it a look over and shrugs. “It’s not so bad, apart from the chainmail.”

“I was planning on starting again from scratch, actually.”

“Probably a good idea, once you get the money. You have to keep improving, you know, if you’re going to keep going up and up.”

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“Couple of friends dropped out the job we were going to do together. Found something better, they say.” He grimaces. “Think one of their father’s set them up with something. But I told the employer I’d bring two along, and he’s counting on me for it.”

“When does it start?”

“Tomorrow morning. Last minute, right?”

“And why me?”

“Damn low ranking job, that’s why. I’m only ninth degree, you know? No one else wants to come along.”

“OK. What’s the job?”

“Just guarding a caravan for a few days. Easy.”

I nod. “Sure then. I’ll take it.” Then I remember something. “But I don’t really have a decent weapon yet.”

“Nothing at all?”

I take out the very short sword I made a couple weeks ago out my storage chest. Whelt examines it.

“Blade’s not bad quality. Get a new handle and turn it into a spear. Shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.”

Guess my rent payment is going to be even further delayed: a new handle is going to be the very last of my silver.

“I’ll be back early morning tomorrow," he says. "If you’re in, that is?”

“I’m in. Easy job, right?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”