The square is completely full of people walking around, shopping, eating, and working.
Looking for the biggest store, I quickly notice that I can't enter any of them, I am taller than every single one.
“Thing to note, I need to find cities more fit for giants.” I murmured to myself while scratching my horn.
Going back inside the inn, I walk towards the group of giants and say with a smile.
“Hi friends, how yall doing? I couldn't help but notice the lack of things for giants in this city, so maybe yall are in need of a blacksmith for your gears. I am Ragurr, a blacksmith by trade and aspiring array master. I bet I can make something good for you.” I end my speech with a smile, looking at the group with expecting eyes.
They look me up and down, then share looks among themselves, and the tallest one says. “I actually have a problem with my shield.” He says, taking out his shield from his back. “It is pretty good, but I've outgrown it some time ago. Now I need a bigger one, but it's extremely hard to find one in these small people cities.” He finishes handing me the shield.
Inspecting it closer I notice it's made out of an alloy called zatir, made of durba and some other three metals, it is three meters tall and two meters wide.
“And what exactly do you want? Bigger, wider, heavier, lighter, with an array?” I ask looking back at him.
“Can you really make arrays? I've never met someone so young who could.” He said with a doubtful look in his eyes.
“I was taught by my mother, I don't know many runes, but I know enough to make some simple arrays.” I answered with a smile.
“Okay. My group is going on a mission to kill some fire breathing crocodiles. So a shield strong against fire would be good.” He said and took out a bracelet to show me its array. “This is our best gear for this mission, it has an array that creates a shield that redirects the fire to the sides. This array has saved our skin countless times. Can you do something similar, but on the shield?”
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Taking the bracelet, I inspect the runes on it. The array is composed of twenty runes, two of which I've never seen.
Looking up at him with a smile I shake his hand accepting the deal.
Paying half a silver to the giantess, she gives me access to the backyard of the inn.
I take my forge, anvil, and sand belt out of my spatial ring, turn the forge on, and get to work.
I'll first make the shield, six meters tall and two and a half wide, out of the same alloy as the previous one, zatir.
Placing three hundred kilograms of material in the forge, I wait for it to melt, mix them up, and take out the impurities that float up. And pour the molten material in a mold in the format of a box.
Waiting for it to cool down, I take the bracelet and inspect every rune it has.
Opening my little grimoire of runes, a booklet where I note down every rune that I know and its uses, I turn to page 101 and start drawing the new runes in front of me.
The core of this array is the manipulation of fire, throwing it in one direction.
It has two runes that makes me really happy to finally learn.
One that can manipulate fire, taking control of it. I already know one to create fire, but it does only that, create. Now I can control it.
And the other is the ability to move things. In this case, moving the fire to the side. But can be linked to anything.
I can already imagine all the amazing arrays that I can do with these two and the hundred more I already know.
Going back to the metal, I start hammering it to shape.
I decided to go for a sharped bottom, with curvy sides and sharped tips to both sides at the top. Making a kind of deformed triangle.
Placing the shield back into the forge, I take out my engraving pen, already having the design of the array in mind, I start to engrave the runes in the metal.
For this array to be stronger, instead of simply making the runes out of rune ink, I'll engrave each rune with a forth metal on the shield.
This metal is actually the feces of a worm-like animal, I've never seen one, but they are widely known. The metal is uridium, the most widely used magical metal.
After carving the shape of the runes out of the shield, I hold the uridium and hammer it into place. Filling the carvings with the soft metal.
Taking out a strong cloth made out of woven hide. Tightening the back of the shield, making the handle and polishing what is left, I finally finished the shield.
Looking up at the sky, I notice that the sky is almost completely dark.
Going back to the inn, I see that the giant is not in the previous spot.
“Excuse me ma'am. Which room is the giant’s group staying in, please.” I asked the owner.
“They are taking all the rooms on the bottom floor, but the one you're looking for is in the second room to the right.” She answered without looking up from her plate.