Back at the Hunter’s Society house then entered, Walla looked up from whatever paperwork she was working on. Her smile lit up the room as she saw the two young men. “How are we doing today, gentlemen?” She asked.
“Excellent, Ms. Walla,” Yacob answered with a smile, reddening a bit. Wali could see that Yacob had a bit of a crush on the woman, and apparently, she saw it too.
“Do our fine muscle-bound men have pockets full of gold now?” She said invitingly to Yacob. Her eyes glowed, and she leaned over, showing some cleavage. Yacob took a deep breath and gulped. She smiled and raised an eyebrow at him, causing some further embarrassment.
Wali stepped forward to the rescue. He leaned across the desk to whisper to Walla, “Be nice; he’s a good kid from a bad home. He doesn’t know how serious you might be.”
She turned to him, “You’re younger than he is. Do you know?”
“Where I come from, we call someone like you a cougar; go easy on him, okay? And I might not be all that I’m advertised.” Wali said with perfect seriousness.
She raised an eyebrow at him, “Fine.” She leaned back to look at Reg and Yacob, who had recovered somewhat. She asked the priest, “Reg, did you keep up your end of the deal?”
Reg smiled and said, “Of course, though it seems these kids will be keeping us company for at least a few more days.”
“Oh really? Why is that?” She asked.
“Well, the Deacon has asked that they stay another nine-day to help the church with some things,” Reg replied.
“Oh really, the Deacon. I’m impressed. Not here for more than a few days, and you have already gotten the attention of Demise’s Deacon. Good work.” Walla said.
“First things first, though, can I make a deposit into our accounts,” Wali said, plopping the coins Deacon Marcellus had paid onto the counter.
“Sure thing, let me see your Hunter’s Stone,” Walla said, taking Wali’s bag of coin and stone. As she counted out the coins, her eyes got big. She looked up at Wali, Yacob, and Reg. Reg nodded, and she slid the coins into the cash box and made some notes into their account. She handed the stone back to Wali. “Must have been something very impressive.”
“I don’t think it’s anything but the first drop in the bucket for these two,” Reg said. He stepped back, “Now that I’ve delivered you back to Mistress Walla Burningheart, I’ll be off. When things are ready for testing, I’ll leave word with Walla here.” He said as he made his way for the door.
Wali and Yacob looked to Walla and then to each other with “Now what?” writ large across their face.
“Looks like we have some time to kill Yacob. We can pick up your bracer tomorrow, but what do you want to do after that?” Wali asked his friend.
“I dunno, let's take a couple of days to rest. We’ve got time and money, so why not?” Yacob said.
“Sure. Maybe we can spend a little of that on some gear. That can wait, though. Let's go get some rest.” Wali said. He was tired, too, it had been a very eventful couple of days.
They returned to their rooms at the Black Dog.
The following morning after a hearty meal, the boys headed for the smithies to collect Yacob’s new bracer. When they arrived, the smith was polishing the item in question. It was a simple steel bracer with no embellishments other than the four specialized mana batteries. The three discs of Deep Jasper sat in a triangle on the outer flange of the clamshell. The inner flange held the Bloodfire Spike was not visible, the fragile crystal set inside the shell. Padded leather wrapped the interior. It was held closed over Yacob’s forearm with a clever locking buckle. They inquired about having it enchanted, and the smith directed him two doors down to another smith.
This smith was atypical of the smiths along the road. The bulk of the smiths in the area were burly folks, heavily muscled and partially deaf. This one had a small shop, a relatively tiny forge that looked more like a coal-fired pizza oven to Wali. She sat at a bench with a small hammer and a long fine pointed chisel. She was working on a breastplate, carefully carving out a sequence of runes along the interior of the piece of armor. Dark forest green hair tied back in a tight queue, dark tanned skin, and short pointed ears marked her as an elf. Her limbs were long and marked with ropey muscles. Scarified tattoos snaked across her skin, swirls and loops of spiked gray and red snaked their way around her wrists and chased themselves up her arms, disappearing under her shirt. A pair of lenses covered her eyes, one red and the other green.
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She did not look up from her work as the boys entered the shop. “Close the door and stop gawping. I’ll be with you in a moment.” She said, voice sandy and rough. The voice of a hardcore lifetime smoker. She continued tapping out a few more lines of the script she was writing and turned to Wali and Yacob.
“What?” She said bluntly, clearly not pleased to have been interrupted.
“Umm, hello. We’d like to see if we can get this piece enchanted.” Yacob said to the elf as he offered the bracer to her.
She grunted, took off her gloves, and flipped the lenses up. The sight below the lenses caused the boys to startle. Where her eyes should have been sat a pair of polished greenstone orbs. Burn scars surrounded the spheres. “Get over it. I’ve had these since before your grandparents were nothing more than a wet dream.” She took the offered bracer. Talking as she examined it. “Erli’s work on the steel is not bad. Leather’s fine enough, I guess. These stones, though. Interesting work on the jasper. The purity of the stone is fantastic; shaping it like that is a bit rough. It’ll work for what you’re doing, I think. The Bloodfire Spike is also interesting; good idea to keep it hidden and protected. Load it up with mana and crack it; you’d lose the arm for sure..” She paused in her examination. “You two do the work on the Jasper?”
“Yes, ma’am, that was me, though Wali talked me through how to do it,” Yacob replied.
“Huh.” She turned and looked at Wali, noticing him for the first time. She looked him up and down. “Ahh, that explains everything. A Colri on a Long Walk, don’t see too many of you kids around these parts very often.”
“Uh, yeah. Is it that obvious?” Wali asked.
“Well, two big things gave it away; one, I can see your totems.” She tapped the side of her eyes. ”Secondly, I walked with that rascal Cohen on more than one occasion. You Colri are all very similar in that way. Barefooted, leathers, spear, yeah.” She paused and looked at Gale, eyes widening.
“You know Cohen? He was one of my Ancients growing up.” Wali said, interested.
“Hehehe, that old bastard still owes me money.” She said as she eyed Gale. “Can I examine your spear?” She asked carefully.
“Sure, but it bites,” Wali said, offering the spear to the smith carefully.
She took the spear after putting the gloves back on. Gale tried to zap her, but the magic failed to do anything. The gloves absorbed the power. She flipped the lenses back down and took some time examining the work. She passed the raging storm elemental back to Wali. “Spirit forged, Bog iron heartwood, Savannah boar tusk crossbar, obsidian with bound storm elemental, a magnificent spear you have there. Despite the elemental being a bit wild.” She eyed Wali with some respect. “This is Longtooth’s work, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Wali said. Does this strange elf know both Ancient Cohen and Longtooth? Who was she? Regardless she deserved respect.
“I taught Longtooth how to do that spirit forging technique, or at least the basics. He’s made improvements since then. That was three centuries ago, though, is he still around?” She said proudly.
“Yes, ma’am, he was my mentor and taught me the glyphs,” Wali said. Yacob was somewhat gobsmacked by the 300 years comment; most humans were happy to live past seventy
“What are your names, children?” She asked, now far more friendly than she had started.
“I am Wali, and this is my friend who is walking with me, Yacob.” Wali introduced them.
“Well, Lor’istan’tidinana blah blah blah, its a very long and boring name from a long time ago. Just call me Ana. Any friend of Longtooth and Cohen is a friend of mine; by extension, someone who walks with my friend is also my friend.” She said, at first sarcastic but moving to serious.
She picked up the bracer, “Can I have this for a little while? As a gift to a friend, I’d like to make it pretty, at least. I’ll only charge you materials?”
Wali looked at Yacob, “I guess so. We also wanted it enchanted with repair and cleaning if possible.”
“Oh sure. I have some other ideas now. Besides, when you get back to your stilt village, you can punch old man Cohen for me with it and tell him we’re square.” She laughed at the idea.
Wali laughed at the idea of Yacob’s stone fist trying to hit the wily old swordsman. “We can try; we can only try.” Yacob looked confused. Wali helped him out, “Cohen is a master swordsman. You only hit him if he lets you. Then you better already be running away.” Ana nodded enthusiastically.
“That’s true. Now you two fuck off, and let me be with this. I have to finish this breastplate and then I can get to work on this. Come back in…” She thought for a moment, “Six days? Bring, say ten gold for materials. It should be less, but that should more than cover my expenses.”
Yacob looked stunned by the sudden rudeness. Wali rolled with it. He grabbed Yacob’s arm to retreat with a “Yes, ma’am.”
As the door closed behind them they heard her shout, “Fuck off with that ma’am shit too!”
They spent the remainder of the day re-outfitting themselves. Magically self-cleaning clothes, boots, and long cloak for Yacob. Just boots and a cloak for Wali. More than sixty gold poorer for the expenses but now better prepared for winter.
They wandered around town some more but eventually returned to the Black Dog for dinner and a restful evening. They sat in the main room, played with puppies, and simply existed for a time. Several other Hunters came and went; even the prick Staevan poked his head into the Black Dog but saw the boys and quickly left.
The next few days were spent alternately going out with Reg to cleanse more forest and resting. Wali took some time to remake his spears on the off days, refining the glyphs and improving the plan even further. He shared his notes with Reg. The first iteration of the iron fence was too far along to refine, but it was a prototype anyways. In the end, they collected another forty gold in kills and cleansed another six rings of the forest.