Arwin returned to his forge and quickly set about getting everything ready to start working. He’d already spent a good portion of the day handling things other than crafting. Necessary they may have been, but they’d still taken a chunk out of the hours left before they went to the dungeon tomorrow.

He threw [Soul Flame] into his hearth and set the feather he’d gotten from Esmerelda down on top of his anvil. He turned to look at what metal he had to work with and, in the process, kicked up a faint wind that lifted the feather off the metal.

Arwin lunged and snagged it out of the air with two fingers just moments before it drifted off in the direction of the hearth. It hadn’t been anywhere near it, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. It would have been exasperating if the feather went up in flames after he’d had to go hunting around for it.

He set the feather back down on the anvil and rested a chunk of scrap metal on top of it to pin it in place. Arwin then went back to what he’d been doing in the first place. He had a fair amount of material to work with, but he was notably almost entirely out of Brightsteel.

There was still some left over from when he’d made the sets of armor, as well as three sets of non-magical armor sitting out in the front room of the smithy. Destroying them to make Anna’s armor felt rather wasteful, though.

It wasn’t like Brightsteel was the only material he could work with. In addition to the plates he’d taken from the spider and the centipede back in Olive’s dungeon, he also had Jessen’s spiky black suit of armor.

A small grin pulled across Arwin’s face. It would be an amusing note of irony to take the tyrant guild leader’s armor and reform it into a set for a healer. Jessen had been large, so he had more than enough to work with.

The more Arwin thought about it, the more the idea actually appealed to him. It would all boil down to if the feather could actually lighten the armor enough for Anna to use it and there was only one way to find out.

He moved the feather and the scrap holding it down over to the corner of the room before retrieving Jessen’s chestpiece and placing it on the anvil. It just seemed like normal metal, but that wasn’t saying much.

Arwin didn’t have any way to identify items when they were being worn by someone else, and he’d done some massive damage to Jessen before the man had died. The massive hole in the chest armor was proof enough of that, and it was severe enough that any magic the chestpiece may have once had would almost certainly have been destroyed by the time Jessen died.

Fortunately for me, metal remembers. Even if the magic isn’t there anymore, it’ll remember. I can’t be working with some evil metal that rejoiced in everything Jessen did. The set is for Anna, after all. Don’t need a bloodthirsty healer.

He set his hands on the rough surface of the warped black metal and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly to steady himself. Arwin opened his mind and reached out to the chestpiece.

Its response was slow. The metal was sluggish and weary, as if it had been woken from a long sleep. Distant scenes flickered through the back of Arwin’s mind. It had seen so many battles that they’d blended together into a blur.

There had been a point where the armor had once been excited for its purpose. It had been a suit of armor for so long that it didn’t even show Arwin any memories of what it had been before.

Jessen hadn’t been its first owner. That was certain. Arwin watched the chestpiece pass from hand to hand. It protected. It broke. It was rebuilt, and it served. Over and over again, it was worn through battles.

The distant scent of fresh earth reached Arwin’s nose, and it took him a second to realize that the smell wasn’t coming from around him. It was from the metal itself — or rather, the memory of magic that had once been within it.

Magical Olfactory works within visions and when speaking to materials? Now that’s good to know.

Arwin didn’t let himself get caught up in it. He rode out the wave of imagery, feeling the metal out. It didn’t seem like it had been either bad or good. It had simply been. It was weary, but it was willing to serve.

The magic within it hadn’t seemed to be evil or rancid either. Granted, Arwin had yet to figure out exactly what the scents of different items actually meant, but nothing in the visions had given the indication that working with Jessen’s old armor would be a detriment.

There was a thin undercurrent of fear within the metal’s desires. It didn’t want to be forgotten. Every one of its owners had fallen and it had never reached its goals. Arwin couldn’t quite determine what those goals were, but he could tell that the chestpiece had no desire to be anything but a chestpiece.

“Well then,” Arwin said, pulling his mind back and looking back down at the armor resting on the anvil before him. “I think we can work together. I’m making a suit of armor for someone pretty different than everyone you’ve served before. Not a warrior. A healer. Someone who protects. How do you feel about that?”

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The metal brushed against his thoughts. It wasn’t magical and its desires were already weak and muted, but the faint flicker of acknowledgement it sent him was all he needed. This was no fresh and excited ingot of metal, unaware of the world before it and full of energy.

The chestpiece was weary and experienced. It wanted purpose but had yet to find it, and now it was up to Arwin to find a way to offer a path forward. He extended a hand and summoned Verdant Blaze.

“Let’s do this,” Arwin told the metal. “Help me make you into something great.”

Then he brought the hammer down. It felt a bit rude to start whacking away right after speaking to the chestpiece, but it was too large and spiky to fit into his hearth as it was. He needed to break it into smaller pieces. Besides, metal didn’t see things the way humans did. It wasn’t like it got hurt when he struck it. There was only desire — and desire unfulfilled.

It didn’t take Arwin long to break the armor up. Once he had it split into several large, plates and a number of smaller ones, he put the biggest pieces into the hearth to heat. Arwin raised the temperature of the [Soul Flame] within it, pouring more magical energy into it.

A dull red started to spread across the black metal’s surface. That red started to take on faint spots of yellow as the former pieces of armor grew hotter. Arwin tilted his head to the side as he watched the hearth.

I wonder if I could heat stone enough to create lava. It’s been a while since I triggered [Molten Novice]. I really don’t know anything about dwarven forging, but I’d love to learn. I just don’t know where I’d actually put lava without destroying something. If I could get back to that room in the dungeon with the lava pool, it would make everything a lot easier. I’ve still got the key.

Minutes passed. Arwin turned his attention back to the armor as it continued to heat, watching it to make sure the [Soul Flame] didn’t take things too far. He pulled back on the energy he was feeding it as the metal reached a wheat color and took the first piece out. He set it on the anvil and raised Verdant Blaze, a smile pulling across his lips. Then the hammer fell. Embers flew into the air as [Soul Flame] curled from Verdant Blaze’s head.

The clang of metal filled the smithy. Arwin hammered away at the piece, flattening it into a workable plate before doing the same to the next part of what had once been Jessen’s armor. With every strike, he washed away the dead man’s influence and brought it closer to its new life.

He worked quickly but without rushing. There was no point rushing the piece out in nine hours and getting a subpar result when he could just spend three more hours and get something far better.

Deadlines were important, but not more important than making a chestpiece that would last Anna for as long as she needed it to. The last thing he wanted was a flawed piece of equipment that would fail to hold up under an attack.

Hours ticked by. Progress moved along steadily. Arwin already had an image of the armor he wanted in his head so while the work didn’t go as quickly as it would have if the Mesh had been guiding him, it still went quickly. The [Soul Flame] empowered strikes made working the metal a simple matter.

It wasn’t quite as malleable as Brightsteel, but it wasn’t as resistant as Maristeel. Arwin didn’t know what the black metal’s name was, but it felt like a solid middle ground between the two.

Piece by piece, the armor started to take form. He followed a similar idea to how he’d made Lillia’s armor, creating several moving segments near the stomach area. Anna probably wouldn’t need quite as much mobility as Lillia did, so he made fewer of them to give her more protection overall.

That would mean the armor would end up being heavier, but he had high hopes that the feather would solve that particular issue. If it didn’t, Anna wouldn’t be able to use the armor regardless of how mobile it was.

He took care to avoid getting too caught up in any one part and focused on getting everything made and roughly shaped. Calling on the Mesh to show him Anna’s sizing would result in a weakened final result, so he’d have to measure everything himself once it was formed.

It was dark out when Arwin finished the majority of his preparation. Half a dozen pieces sat on the ground before him, laid out and cooled in wait to be tested out. He hurried out of the smithy and over to the tavern in hopes of catching Anna before she went to bed.

Several heads turned to him as he stepped through the door — he’d caught the others right as they were eating dinner. Arwin grinned. “Ah, perfect. I was worried it would be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Rodrick asked, lowering the fork from his mouth. “Did something happen?”

“No. I just need to borrow Anna to measure her sizing for the armor for a moment,” Arwin replied. “Do you have a moment, Anna?”

“Sure,” Anna replied. She slipped down from her stool. “How long will it take?”

“Only a few minutes.” Arwin nodded to the others, then held the door open for Anna before following her out onto the street and back over to his smithy and into its back room.

“So what do I do?” Anna asked, looking at all the pieces laying on the floor. “Is there a way to fasten them on or something?”

“No, we don’t need to do that. Just hold still. I should probably get a measuring stick or something at some point, but this’ll do for now,” Arwin said idly, picking up the front plate of the chestpiece and holding it up to Anna’s chest. “Hold this here.”

Anna obliged, grunting slightly at the weight. While she held it up, Arwin gathered a mote of [Soul Flame] at his fingertip and increased its temperature. He used it to make markings along the outside of the armor, then took the plate of metal from Anna and handed her the next one.

In that manner, they went through the rest of the armor pieces. Arwin marked each one of them, and they’d gotten all the measurements he needed just around twenty minutes later. It wasn’t the most efficient way of doing things, but it worked.

“What’s next?” Anna asked.

“That’s it,” Arwin replied absent-mindedly, his mind already back on the chestpiece. “Thanks for your help.”

“I think I’m the one that should be thanking you,” Anna said with a laugh. “But I’ll do that when you’re fully present. See you tomorrow, Arwin.”

Arwin nodded, her words only barely reaching his head. The door closed behind him as Anna left, but he barely even heard it.

He scooped the single feather off the ground where it had been pinned beneath some scrap and placed it upon the anvil, a flicker of excitement coursing through him. He had everything he needed. The chestpiece was ready to move into its final step.

It was time to add in some magic.