David walked across the plains as the sun gradually climbed to its peak, around midday. The Shifting Forest was on the plains of Jotunnheim, which comprised most of the southern half of the country, the north being filled with the Orun mountain range. That was when the Forest came into sight on the horizon.

In the distance, the Shifting Forest looked like a thin line of darker green between the blue of the sky and the light green of the plains.

-Finally. I thought it was going to take forever.

As he got closer, he realized that there were buildings on the edge of the forest. He looked at the map again.

-There isn’t supposed to be anything here, is there? Maybe it’s so small it just doesn’t appear on maps?

As the sun gradually descended, David walked. In the late afternoon, as he got closer to the town, he began to pass cultivated plots of land, small ones, tillable by a single person. At first, there wasn’t anybody on the farms he passed, but as he walked, he began to see people, working the farms. If they caught sight of him, they didn’t show it. Not a single one looked up to see who he was, and David reached the town uneventfully.

First, he looked for a tavern – the best place to get information on the surrounding areas. However, none of the buildings in town had any signs.

-Should I just press on, into the Forest? Nah, I definitely need to find a map of the forest first, otherwise it’ll take forever to find that druid.

David kept wandering through the town. It seemed to be quite small. The houses were all made of wood, although they were well constructed. They looked sturdy enough to last through a major storm. The town itself was small – there were maybe 40 houses total.

As he wandered from one edge of the town another, he began to hear the distinctive clanking of the blacksmith.

-Finally, someone I can ask questions of.

David was uncomfortable asking strangers for anything, but shop clerks were a different story – they were supposed to be helpful.

He walked towards the sound of clanging. He found the smithy and entered, not noticing the odd patterns in which the mana swirled.

Inside, he noticed right away. Motes of silver mana were swirling around inside. The source was over by the forge. A man in his prime stood by an anvil, hammering at something he held on the horn of the anvil with tongs. Each time the hammer contacted the metal, the mana nearby became solid silver.

“Hello?” David called.

“Hmm. What?” The man turned towards David. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. What can I do for you?”

His eyes were a deep brown, warm with kindness. His hair was also brown. His face was nothing special, but you could see a twinkle in his eyes and laugh lines around his eyes that belied a sense of humor. David was more interested in the mana than the man himself, though.

“This may be an odd question, but you wouldn’t happen to be some special kind of blacksmith, would you?”

“What!? What would give you that idea?” He had reacted too quickly and was too uncomfortable for this to be the truth. David raised an eyebrow and the smith sighed, deflating a little. “Well, maybe. I don’t really want to talk about it though.” The man looked uncomfortable. “What can I get for you?”

The man clearly wanted David gone. David had other ideas. He really wanted to know what the smith was doing. It looked like he was getting full conversion of mana, and he wasn’t even doing anything with the converted mana.

“What would it take for you to tell me your story?”

The man sighed. He could see that David wasn’t going to let it go.

“Well, I need more materials – I’m running out of iron. There really isn’t a source of ore around here, but if you go around and collect some old rusted and broken iron tools from the other farmers, I can melt them down. I’ll tell you the tale while I melt them down. I think Hue, Tad, Erin, Susannah, Isaac, and Ellie all said they had some old tools they weren’t using anymore.”

Old Tools

The smith needs more iron to make replacement tools. Fetch the old tools of 6 townspeople for him to melt down.

Difficulty Level: F

Reward: The smith’s story

“It’s a deal.” David smiled with excitement.

As the farmers began to return from their fields, David approached the first one he saw, a young man, red from the sun beating down on him. The man looked at David a little suspiciously, but he didn’t ignore him outright.

“Excuse me, but could you point me to Hue, Tad, Erin, Susannah, Isaac, or Ellie?”

“Why do you want to know?” The man looked more confused than suspicious, now.

“The blacksmith asked me to get their old tools so that he could melt them down for iron.”

“Luhan? In that case, I saw Isaac in his field not five minutes ago. He should still be there, he was trying to shift a stone the size of a man. Isaac’s a stubborn one, he is. He might ask for your help. Unless you can lift that thing yourself, don’t say okay. That rock has been there since the foundation of the village, and there it’ll stay until the end of time.”

“Thank you.”

David walked back the way the man had pointed, passing several empty fields and a few men, returning from their fields, soaked in sweat, red from the sun, their boots covered in dirt to their ankles.

Eventually he came to a field where a man was wedging a long plank of wood into the ground near a stone. When the plank seemed deep enough, he started to push down on the far end. The stone shifted just a little, but then the plank snapped and the stone sank back into the ground.

“Oh, come on. That should have worked.” The man shouted at the sky. Then he sighed, and picked up the remains of the plank. As he shouldered the broken halves, David called out to him.

“Hello”

“Yes?” Turning towards David, Isaac saw that it was a stranger who had called him. “What can I do ya’ for, stranger?”

“The smith sent me to get your old tools.”

“Well, ya’ see, that there’s a problem. I was using ma’ old shovel, tryna’ leverage this here rock out the ground, but the shaft snapped clean in two and the rock fell back down, trapping the head of the shovel underneath. If ya’ can shift this durned rock, I’d be happy to give ya’ the shovel.”

-Hmm, this seems like it would be easy to shift, but I don’t have any earth spells which will move rocks that are already there. Maybe I can create a spell to lift rocks?

“Alright, I’ll give it a try.”

Let’s see, definitely some earth for the stone, mixed with wind to lift it?

David pushed his mana out onto his hand, converting some to earth, some to wind, and a little to the fusion element. He mixed them, and then he directed the result – a lighter, yellowy brown ball – at the rock, thinking,

-Lift, lift, lift, lift, lift.

The ball of mana sunk into the stone. At first, David thought that it hadn’t done anything, but then, slowly, the rock lifted out of the ground. It was much bigger than the surface would have suggested. The stone kept rising out of the ground, and kept going. When it was the height of a small building, the tip of the stone rose above ground level. The rock was oddly shaped. The bit that had shown from above was small compared to the whole. It kind of looked like a wedge, but with a bit cut away on all sides just below the top. There was a scraping sound, and then something fell from the indent, into the hole in the ground.

*Ding*

Mana Sight has increased by 1

Mana Sight is now level 5

You can see more fine distinctions in mana

Mana Mastery has increased by 1

Mana Mastery is now level 5

Mana use is now more efficient, - 8% mana consumption for all spells

Spell Creation has increased by 1

Spell Creation is now level 2

Created spells are more effective, -45% damage & + 27.5% casting time

You have created a spell. What would you like to name it?

“Lift.”

The spell’s name is Lift?

“Yes.”

“Uff.” Isaac made a sound like all the air had rushed out of him. “So that’s why I’ve never been able to shift it. That thing is more of a boulder than a rock.”

“What do you want me to do with this? I can’t just leave it in the air, and I don’t know how long the spell will hold.”

“It can go over here.” Isaac pointed to the road. “The town could probably use a lump of stone this big. We don’t really have much stone around here, natcherally, so we could use it for something, probably.”

“Okay.”

-Hmm. How do I move it? Does it move according to my thoughts? Float forward.

Nothing happened.

-Maybe it’s really light then?

David looked down at the hole that the stone floated over.

-There’s no way I can push it from 10 feet in the air.

“Gust!” He called. His mana flowed out, and became a wind that blew at the stone. It floated along with the wind, slowly, but surely.

David guided the stone out onto the dirt path he had come down before.

“Right there’s good. Thanks for your help. You’ve more than earned that shovel. I wish I could give you something for your trouble, but I don’t have much of anything.”

“That’s okay.”

David slid down into the hole. At the bottom, a mangled bit of metal that must’ve once been the head of the shovel lay on top of a small wooden chest, about the size of cat. David glanced back up the hole. Isaac was nowhere in sight, he could easily take anything valuable from the chest without his knowledge, but he couldn’t do it – stealing was just too risky – if Isaac happened to catch him he might get chased out of town and not be able to finish the smith’s quest.

“Isaac! You might want to come see this, I found something.”

Isaac appeared at the edge of the hole, looking down. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s some kind of chest. I’ll bring it up.” David stored the metal in his inventory and then lifted the chest, which was surprisingly heavy. He was still at the bottom of the hole, and the sides were steep enough that it would be harder to climb out again.

-I’m sort of trapped, aren’t I? Oh wait, there’s a spell that can help me out here.

“Updraft!” He called. His mana flowed out, some converted to wind. It created a column of fast moving air coming from the bottom of the hole. It wasn’t enough to lift him on its own, but when he jumped, even holding the chest in his arms, he got almost halfway. He jumped again and the wind pushed him up and over the lip of the hole.

“Okay,” Isaac said. “Let’s see what’s inside. Do ya’ have some sort of fancy unlocking spell or something?”

“No, and I don’t want to try out something untested on something important. I could destroy it if I get it wrong. Do you have something to open the lock with?” The chest was made of a dark wood, but the joints were covered in metal and there was a keyhole on a small metal plate, right where the lock would be.

“No, but ya’ know who would? Luhan. Luhan can do pretty much anything involving some sort of metal or other.”

“I sort of want to know what’s inside. When are you going to take it to the smith?”

“Oh. Well, I suppose I could take it ta’ him anytime… No, ya’ know what, I don’t even need the box. Because I couldn’t of done it without ya’, why don’t ya’ take it and whatever’s inside.”

“Thank you.” David picked up the chest and put it in his bag. He didn’t have a lot of things in there, but it definitely was getting close to his carrying limit.

“No, I should thank you. That rock’s been an itch I just couldn’t scratch for the whole of my life.”

“It wasn’t a problem. All right then, I should go get the rest of the scrap metal. Do you know where I could find Hue, Tad, Erin, Susannah, or Ellie?”

“Hmm, I think I saw Hue headin’ back into town a while back.”

“Thanks. Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

David walked back into town and sought out the remaining 5 pieces of scrap metal. Each person wanted help with some minor task or another, though none required new spells or any significant effort. David chased down an escaped chicken for Hue, helped pick herbs from Susannah’s garden, washed dishes for Ellie, found Tad’s wedding ring and wrote a letter for Erin (who couldn’t see well enough to write any more).

David returned to the smith with the pieces of scrap metal and the chest. All of the tasks had taken him a while, and the sun was setting as he entered the smithy. He saw Luhan by the forge, hammering some metal on the anvil. As before, each clang converted the mana to silver.

“Hello.”

“Oh. You’re back.” The smith didn’t seem disappointed, just … resigned. He had accepted that he would have to tell someone his story, he just didn’t like it. “Where’s the scrap metal. I can work while I talk.”

“Here it is.” David pulled the six bits of metal out of his inventory and handed them to the smith. Luhan walked over to the forge and tossed the bits into the forge, and pumped the bellows. Then he returned to where David stood and motioned him over to an old wooden table with a few chairs around it. When he and David were both sitting, he began.

“Where to start… I was born in northern Jotunnheim, in a small iron-mining town near a small mountain in the Orun range. My father was a miner, my mother was a seamstress, so we weren’t exactly the richest folk around but we got by. My family was pretty average I suppose.”

“My father worked in the mines every day, and he knew that he didn’t want his son to work there. It was hard, back-breaking work he did. Every day he labored deep in the mine, chipping at rocks, carrying the broken rocks out of the mine, working for hours and hours. He decided that I needed to get an apprenticeship with a master tradesman, so that I could lift myself out of poverty. From the time I was born, he worked long days, and we scrimped and we saved, eating little and fixing all of our broken things ourselves. In those days, apprenticeships were expensive, even more so if the master was well-renowned.”

“Finally, when I was ten, my father and I journeyed to the nearest city, Orillis, looking for the then famous blacksmith, Wollung, known for creating exceptional swords and armor. My father got him to accept me as his apprentice, with all of our savings – which amounted to 5 gold – not so much for a master blacksmith, but an incredible amount for a poor miner.”

“I started the next day. For the first year of my apprenticeship, master taught me how to separate ores by grade, as well as a fair price for each of them. In the second year, master taught me how to work with low-grade ores, to extract the impurities and create a high-grade piece of metal. In the third year, master taught me how to make simple things – small knives for chopping vegetables, hoops to hold barrels together, that sort of thing. In the fourth and fifth years, master taught me how to do more detailed work, with flowery decorations and fine engraving. In the sixth and the seventh years, master taught me how to make the finest weapons and armor, out of any grade of metal, including mithril and orichalcum. Master told me that I was unusually quick to learn anything about metal - perhaps because I basically lived and breathed metal for the entirety of my life. In the mining town, we had metal always around us, and working with the smith, I was even more so immersed in the world of metal.”

“Anyway, after I graduated my apprenticeship, I began to work as a journeyman, in Master Wollung’s shop. I produced decent weapons and armor for the poorer of adventurers and took some of master’s work when he got too many orders at once. While I worked, I thought constantly about a masterpiece – the piece that you submit to the guild and gain the title of master. After three years working as a journeyman, while I was working on some armor for a poor adventurer, I hit upon an idea – a shield that would strike terror into the hearts of foes. It took a year and many attempts, but I finally forged a shield that was worthy of being called a masterpiece. I submitted it, and easily passed the committee of masters who judged my work. When I was 21 years old, I became a master in my own right; I was one of the earliest to have done so.”

“I suppose that’s why you could say I’m a special kind of blacksmith – I’m a master blacksmith, guild certification and all.”

Luhan finished his tale, then hopped up and checked the forge.

The smith hadn’t filled in the most confusing part of his story, how he had come to be in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

-Really? Is there nothing else special about him? He must have something else. He can’t have gotten 100% conversion just for being a master blacksmith. Maybe it was related to why he lived in a tiny town as a country smith rather than in the middle of a city.

“So why are you, a master blacksmith, here, in the middle of this tiny town?” David asked.

“Well, it’s a long story.” The smith was clearly reluctant to tell him.

“I’ve got time.”

“Haaa.” The smith sighed. “After I became a master blacksmith, I opened my own store with the money I earned working as a journeyman for Master Wollung. For a few years, I slowly built my reputation in the community as a high quality blacksmith who would also make weapons that poor or weak adventurers could use – I guess I had a soft spot for the poor because of my background. I tried to never forget that I came from humble beginnings. I couldn’t charge less for them – the guild would have had a problem with that – but I did make them well, with slightly higher durability and attack than the average blacksmith. Of course, the guild occasionally fined me for it, but I also did decent business with the rich and powerful. My name spread throughout the city. It was almost inevitable, really, in hindsight.”

“After a few years working as a blacksmith, Master Wollung – by that point he was almost 80 years old – retired. I became the premier blacksmith in the city. My fame only grew.”

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“One day, when I was 25, and my reputation had spread to almost the whole of the Orun mountain range, a woman walked into my shop. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Admittedly, I hadn’t seen all too many women back then – I spent far too much time at my forge – but even I knew that she was something special. She had auburn hair, like burnished copper, a completely symmetrical face, and deep green eyes, like I had never seen before. She glanced around the store, as if searching for something or someone hidden in the shadows. I was too enraptured by her beauty to notice how odd her behavior was at the time.”

“Satisfied that there wasn’t anything else in the store, she turned to me. She saw that I was staring and stood there awkwardly. Eventually, she broke the silence. ‘Hello’ she said, in a voice like bells. I snapped out of it.”

“‘Hello’ I replied, ‘What can I do for you?’”

“’I’d like a sword for a total beginner. Money isn’t really an issue.’ Whatever this girl was, she wasn’t a merchant – she had no bargaining skills whatsoever.”

“’Okay.’ I said, still working on remaining coherent. ’What kind of sword would you like?’”

“’There are different kinds of swords?’ She looked a little lost at the news.”

“’Yes. If you don’t know which type you’re best suited for, you can try out a few I have as samples.’ She nodded, relieved, and I brought out a few pieces I had made as an example of what I could do.”

“’You should probably stick with something light.’ I handed her a gladius – a short sword used by fighters in colosseums. She swung it around a little, but it looked awkward. ‘I don’t think that one’s for you. Try this.’ I handed her a Bilbo sword.”

http%3a%2f%2fwww.creativecrash.com%2fsystem%2fphot...1264723008 [http://www.creativecrash.com/system/photos/000/079/175/79175/big/Gladius1.gif?1264723008]

http%3a%2f%2fimg.photobucket.com%2falbums%2fv127%2fy...lbo2-1.jpg [http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v127/yelunatic/Bilbo2-1.jpg]

“She swung it around, but I could tell that it didn’t fit her. ‘Do you think I could get something a little longer?’ she asked. ‘These feel a little too short.’”

“I agreed with her – she didn’t seem to have trouble with the lighter swords, when most beginners could barely lift them. ‘Okay, then. Let’s try this.’ I brought out a cavalry sabre. This too, we rejected. We went through all of my example pieces, one after another – the backsword, the bastard sword, the claymore, the flamberge, the broadsword, the longsword – some a little too heavy, some a little too light, none were quite right for her.”

“’Are you sure you want a sword?’ I asked. ‘I have other weapons – spears, halberds, daggers, axes, maces, a few other unusual ones. One of those might suit you better.’”

“’No, I really want a sword.’ She was oddly emphatic, but then again, there was nothing about this woman that wasn’t odd – a suspicious, beautiful woman who had no combat experience, who had enough strength to handle many of my swords, but with whom none sat quite right.”

“’In that case, I have a few other swords. I didn’t bring them out before, because I am not proud of them. They are all experimental pieces, based on rumor and myth or described only vaguely. I warn you, these swords will most likely sit even worse with you than the swords I brought out earlier. In addition, right now, I don’t have enough experience making the swords to give one to you in good conscience. It might take weeks or even months for me to produce one I feel comfortable selling.’”

“The lady’s eyes did not waver. ’Even so,’ she said ‘I would like to try them out.’ I nodded. I brought out all of the pieces that I had been tinkering with in my spare time – the katana I had heard from an adventurer was popular on an island of odd warriors off the eastern coast of the Southern Continent, the kris from an isolated, tropical nation deep in the forest of the Southern Continent, the falx from an ancient nation in the Central Continent, the kilij from a long dead nomadic tribe, and the khopesh, from a small, though ancient river nation in the Western Continent. She immediately gravitated towards the khopesh. ‘That’s a real odd weapon’ I told her. ‘Apparently, it was based on an axe.’”

katana:

http%3a%2f%2fimg4.wikia.nocookie.net%2f__cb20110...Katana.png [http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110927225512/fallout/images/e/e9/Katana.png]

kris:

http%3a%2f%2fwww.oriental-arms.com%2fphotos%2fitem...7%2fph-0.jpg [http://www.oriental-arms.com/photos/items/27/001827/ph-0.jpg]

falx:

http%3a%2f%2fi40.photobucket.com%2falbums%2fe245%2ffisac%2ffalx1.jpg [http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e245/fisac/falx1.jpg]

kilij:

http%3a%2f%2fupload.wikimedia.org%2fwikipedia%2fco...G_5573.jpg [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Cimeterre_IMG_5573.jpg/330px-Cimeterre_IMG_5573.jpg]

khopesh:

http%3a%2f%2fupload.wikimedia.org%2fwikipedia%2fco...hopesh.jpg [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Khopesh.jpg]

“She swung it around a few times, and it clearly fit her. ‘I like this one.’ She said. ‘Is it okay if I take it?’”

“I shook my head. ‘It still isn’t ready for actual combat – the way I made it, the blade is brittle and will shatter with a few swings, plus, the sword’s unbalanced. I can work on forging a better one, but it will take some time to get right. If you come back every few days to test them out, I can create a sword like this one that will suit you much better.’ Perhaps it was because she was so beautiful, but I was willing to put in the effort required to make a new sword like that one every day if I could see her again.”

“’Okay, then.’ She replied. ‘I’ll come back in three days.’ She turned and left the shop.”

“For the rest of the day, I pitched myself headlong into my backlog, clearing up almost all of it, so that I could make time for that woman. The next two days, I closed the shop and spent them exclusively on forging a new sword for her. I wasn’t satisfied with any of them – some were too brittle, some turned out oddly shaped, some had the wrong balance. On the third day since we had met, I produced a sword that was somewhat passable. In the course of all my failures, I discovered that the sword needed a slightly softer metal – not too soft, but soft enough that the blade could bend a little. I used bronze and the resulting sword, though it was less damaging, was no longer brittle, oddly shaped or off-balance. She showed up in the early morning just after I finished the bronze khopesh, as beautiful as I had remembered.”

“‘Hello.’ She said. ‘Do you have my sword ready?’”

“‘Sort of. I figured out how to make it, but it has a lower attack value than a normal sword would. It’s not perfect, but give it a try.’ I handed it to her. She tried it out, and by the time she had taken a few swings, she was smiling. That smile was worth the days that I had spent making that sword, the countless failures, the feeling of discouragement.”

“‘This is incredible! It’s even better than the first one.’ She told me, still smiling.”

“‘It’s not yet perfect. If you give me a few more days, I can create a sword with better attack power, which doesn’t sacrifice balance or durability.’”

“‘Can I take this one, to practice with, until then?’ She asked. ‘I need to start getting used to it, and maybe I can even use a better sword if I get enough experience with this one.’”

“I was happy at the very thought of her return, so much had I become infatuated with her. Of course I agreed, I couldn’t bear to make her unhappy. I opened the shop for the rest of the day – I couldn’t stay closed all the time, just for her, but I did think about her and the sword I would forge for her. I spent the next few days with the shop open during the day. I worked on her khopesh in my spare time, which was mostly at night. I was experienced enough at that point that even though I was sleep-deprived, the quality of my work didn’t suffer. With each time I forged her khopesh anew, I tried to rebalance the mix of hard and soft. It would have been easier if I could use mithril or other higher tier materials, but this was a sword for a beginner. I worked constantly, producing sword after sword, trying to home in on the optimal ratio. Eventually, I produced a sword I believed was the optimal ratio – the attack began to lower if I made it softer, and the durability suffered if I made it harder. It’s attack was still below that of the average sword, but I couldn’t see any other way to mix hard and soft. That night, I slept for longer than a few hours for the first time in four days.”

“The next day, early in the morning, she came in. ‘Hello.’ She said. ‘Do you have my sword?’”

“‘Yeah’ I replied ‘it’s in the back.’ I went and got it for her. ‘This is it.’ I said, handing it to her. ‘It’s still not on the level of a normal sword, but it’s the best I can think of for now.’”

“She took it and swung a few times, practicing. ‘Great! This is even better than the last one!’ She turned towards me. ‘How much do I owe… Wait, what happened to you – you look like you haven’t slept at all since I last saw you.’”

“I shrugged. I didn’t want her to feel bad, so I minimized it ‘I had a little too much work the past few days. Had to get around to some of the more important pieces.’”

“‘Oh.’ She looked like she didn’t believe me, but we had only interacted for a small period of time so she didn’t call me out on it; though I was probably in love with her by this point, she felt little to nothing for me. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and I was just an average blacksmith. ‘So … How much do I owe you?’”

“I severely undercharged her, asking basically only for the cost of the materials of the sword she held. She easily paid my asking price. I told her to come back if it ever needed repairing, implying that I would be the only one who could repair it and she left. I wondered, then, if she would ever return. For the first week, I started at every person who opened the door, hoping that she would be the one who would walk through the door. For another month, I dreamt about her return. After that, she began to fade in my memory.”

“Then, just when I had all but forgotten her, she walked through my door. ‘Hello.’ She said.”

“‘Hi.’ I said. We stared at each other, a little awkwardly.”

“Like at our first meeting, she was the first to break the silence. ‘I’ve come because the sword you gave me finally broke. Also, I’ve become stronger, and I was wondering whether you could make me a better sword.’”

“‘How much stronger?’ I asked. I needed to know, if I was to forge her a better khopesh.”

“‘Much stronger.’ She replied definitively. ‘I reached basic 5 in sword mastery and I’m now level 40.’ That was an impressive gain, but perhaps not all that impressive given that I had last seen her 3 months before.”

“‘That’s good.’ I told her. ‘Can you show me your sword?’ She pulled out her khopesh. It was in two pieces, and the blade was chipped almost to the point where there wasn’t any of the original left. ‘Great Freya! What kind of abuse have you been raining on this poor sword?’”

“Not catching that I was joking, she defended herself. ‘I was just sparring with a friend of mine.’”

“‘Okay…’ I said, as if doubting her, still joking.”

“She began to protest, but then stopped when I cracked a smile ‘Oooh, that was mean.’ She pouted a little, as if unused to teasing. Even while pouting, her face was beautiful beyond measure.”

“‘I’ll make your sword. Do you want me to repair this one, while you wait for the other? As an apology for the joke.’ I only wanted her to smile again.”

“‘I would like that very much,’ she said, no longer sulking.”

“I repaired her sword and told her to come back in a few days. After she left, I immediately closed shop and began work on her khopesh. I could use higher quality materials and remove more of the faults with the blade now that she was a higher level, and I took full advantage of that fact. I crafted the khopesh every which way I could, looking for a solution to the durability/attack trade-off. I even went to the library, searching for books on blacksmithing techniques from foreign countries. Combing through the blacksmithing section, I found the solution. The book, about the forging of katanas, explained that the smiths there wrapped hard steel around a core of softer steel, allowing for a sharp edge on a flexible sword. I poured that knowledge into the forging of the khopesh. When she returned, I had a khopesh as strong and durable as other swords. Again, I significantly undercharged her.”

“For several years, it went on like that. She would come to me once in a while, when she had become stronger than her sword. I would shut down for a few days and pour all of my soul into forging her a stronger, better khopesh – for which I charged her almost nothing. As this went on, she gradually began to open up. Her name was Astrid. She was secretive because she wasn’t exactly supposed to be using a sword. She couldn’t stand the idea of injustice. She was generous and very kind.

“I opened up to her in turn. I told her about some of my life, uninteresting as it was. She seemed at least a little interested in it, though. We spent longer and longer times talking. Sometimes she would have to leave suddenly, but as the days went on, she came back more and more often. We didn’t have much else to talk about except for her sword so we did that in great detail. We talked about techniques specific to her sword. She told me things that she had discovered while she was sparring, like that the hook on the blade was good for disarming opponents. I told her things I thought might be useful, based on feedback from other adventurers – I had started selling the khopesh in my shop, and I asked those who bought one to tell me techniques they discovered while using it. In this way, we passed our time together. We continued to grow closer.”

“One day, Astrid came into the store, angry. She had realized that I was undercharging her when her sparring partner’s sword broke and he complained about the price of his sword. She asked me why and I told her the truth: I didn’t really know. She insisted on paying a fair price, several times above just the cost of the materials, even without all the failed attempts I made while trying to find ways to improve the composition and design. However, she had no problem paying the new, much higher price.”

“Astrid started to visit me more often, at least once a week. She began to touch me more, brushing up against me and sitting so close to me that our legs touched. Finally, we became more than friends. When we kissed for the first time, in my shop, like all of our meetings, I felt the most happy I had ever been. Perhaps some redress for my good fortune was inevitable.”

“She finally opened up to me fully. Her full name was Astrid Langenberg, she was the daughter of Duke Langenberg – the man who controlled the whole region we lived in, centered on Orillis. He was a legendarily fair man, but according to Astrid, he had something of an archaic view of a woman’s place in the world. He wanted Astrid to grow up, learning the womanly arts of sewing, embroidery, knitting, playing the harp, reading and writing poetry, until she was old enough to marry some suitable man (although on this point, he was much more relaxed and strict at the same time – he wanted Astrid to be happy with her husband, but he also wanted the husband to be almost supernaturally kind, caring, manly, and loving of Astrid). As such, he absolutely forbade her to learn the ways of combat. As soon as she grew old enough, she convinced him to give her an allowance, telling him it was for furthering her pursuit of the womanly arts. Astrid came to me that day with the help of her sewing teacher, who allowed her to skip her sewing lessons.”

“She had always loved tales of sword masters who defeated great monsters with their strength and skill alone. Learning the sword was an attempt both to emulate her favorite stories and to secure some freedom for herself – the life she lived was a comfortable prison. She learned the sword by sparring with a friend of hers, one of her father’s knights, in snatches, briefly, at night, or while most of the other knights were out. Occasionally she could skip sewing practice to sneak out to hunt. This was why her growth was so slow, over the course of the three years since she first came to me, she had only grown to level 100, with intermediate 5 in sword mastery.”

“We began to meet in disguise and go out for the little while that she could escape. We went to visit uncrowded places together, just walking hand in hand. Astrid always had to leave sooner than we both would have liked. We were in love with each other, but it couldn’t last.”

“After three months of this, we were discovered. Astrid had been wearing a hat to hide her hair and while we walked across a windy courtyard, it blew off her head. I grabbed it immediately and we got out of there quickly, but someone must have seen.”

“The next morning, I received a visit from the duke. He had received a tip from an anonymous person who had seen her outside the palace. Following up on it, he found some of the letters I had sent her through her sewing tutor, for when she couldn’t slip away from the palace. He told me that he had fired her sewing tutor and had locked Astrid up in her room. He saw that she loved me and that I loved her, but he thought our relationship was doomed. I was a commoner, she a future duchess. It couldn’t work, he said, and he wanted it to end now, before we made a mistake that would be hard to erase. He was a fair man and, although perhaps it was because he knew what I would do, he told me that I could choose: stay in his territory and Astrid would remain locked up, or leave and Astrid could have some of her freedoms back.”

There was a tear in the smith’s eye, now.

“Of course I left. Astrid dreamed of true freedom, and being locked up in her room must have been killing her. That day, I packed up all the goods I owned in the world, left the shop for the guild to sell or fill, and drove out of the city.”

“I traveled for days, driving south. I hadn’t packed a map or much food or water when I left. I didn’t know how to hunt animals or find wild plants that I could eat. I was nearly dying by the time I reached this place. In gratitude, I have stayed here for the past three years. Perhaps it is also because I hope that, one day, Astrid will come and find me here, so far away from civilization that we will never be discovered.”

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