The pale moonlight softly fell upon the buildings of the Milaelerion. The soft silver coated every structure in an otherworldly shine as it sat upon the clouds, its position haughty above the world. All in this land of the sky were sleeping; all but one. A single unassuming forge glowed in a dauntless red heat that beat back the silver ambient light outside. Within the stone walls stood a human. He looked no more than a boy, though the grim look on his face told a contradictory tale.
His pale, calloused hand held a long, plain wooden handle covered in soot, holding up what looked to be no more than a small block of pure black metal. It was, however, one of the smaller implements hung upon the cold, dirty walls of his dwelling. Those, however, lacked importance to him at the moment. He focused relentlessly on what sat below him upon a hulking flat piece of metal the same shade as his hammer.
As what was once a hunk of yellowish metal began to take form, it lost its bright red heat, finally losing its old color. If not for the grime that riddled the dents and contours of the remarkably straight metal, it would shine with the sheen of luxurious silver. The boy’s gloved right hand grabbed the rough tang, picking up the formidable weight and moving the body of the weapon into the source of the intense light that caused his ashen hair to shine with his sweat.
Within minutes, he had pulled it out, the metal once again white-hot. His muscles flexed as he swung the hammer, the same motion repeating almost exactly as his confidently placed strikes traveled further down the blade.
Having significantly drawn out the body of the sword in progress, he was left with a blade of 45 inches in length, with width one would expect out of little more than a needle of the same length. The flat of the blade ended curving inward on both sides, reaching a small, sharp point that followed the spine of the blade with microscopic precision.
The boy sighed as he removed his glove, revealing his small hand covered in burns, scars, and cuts that never healed quite correctly. Looking down regretfully at this hand, he wished the marks were accidental, but never had such a luxury. With a sigh, he looked away.
‘I don’t have time for self-pity. Not like this.’ He mumbled to himself, grasping at a soot-coated rag and pressing it against his glistening brow. Minutes later, he had disappeared from the room.
Through the doorway he stepped, and began rummaging around, going through countless deadly sharp pristine blades. They were works of various quality, but as one moved their eyes from one side of the room to the other, they would see the obvious gradient of quality. In one corner of the room, there hung blades gnarled, uneven, and poorly balanced. They were made only of dark, dirty iron, and their handles and guards were simple and not measured to the hand. Those weapons were few, and today, they once again escaped becoming scrap metal, as they had courageously done for years.
Searching through the best of his works, the boy found a suitable weapon. A blade width of two inches, extremely sharp, made of one of his personal favorite alloys, Bracium. It was offwhite blue in color, and it gleamed and maintained a superior edge even without being touched or maintained in months. However, this resistance to the ultimate adversity known only as time was not the reason for his love for the material. It was a sign of indelible purity, the blade was resistant to any sort of dirt, and simply wiping it after its initial treating was enough to bring it back to that shine of a new sword. It took incredible force for it even to chip, especially in the massive blade of the broadsword he had forged it into. The alloy could endure any adversity as if apathetic. The boy envied and admired it for these virtues. The blade was 28 inches in length, and the width allowed it to hold an edge to cut through even harder metals as if they were no more than talc while growing to create a wide and durable spine. He had fondly nicknamed this weapon “Berserker,” though its formal name was the darker and more terse “Losach.”
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He gripped its long leather handle that had been cut from leather that he stole and tanned himself, unbeknownst to the denizens of the Milaelerion. With relative ease, he lifted it, carrying it into the room of his forge, where his new work awaited, sitting upon two blocks of iron.
These blocks of iron were some few inches wide, and perhaps a foot tall each. They provided a good stand, and were not obtrusive for what he was about to accomplish. In the middle of the empty, grime-laden floor of his forge, he placed the unfinished blade, tip on one block and tang on the other.
Then, he swung. His arms looked incredibly vascular as he brought his creations against each other. His face, however, depicted less grit and fear than voraciousness. He was boiling over with excitement as the blade reached the thin metal that was about to be destroyed.
However, what happened far exceeded his expectations. As the two blades clashed, a high-pitched ring reverberated through the skies, and his hands shivered, shaking with the vibration that had been caused by the impact, and with his excitement. The shock reverberated through his bones, and he could hear the ghost of the dull ring resounding in his ears for what felt like ages afterward, almost drowning out his own thoughts.
His new sword had reached the floor. However, it had done so perfectly intact, glowing, in fact. The force of the impact had shocked the dust and dirt off of the surface, leaving his work in progress brighter than it ever had been.
The iron blocks it had sit upon had suffered a much worse fate. Their original shape, hammered out over hours by the boy, had been annihilated. They looked closer to what one would consider tin foil to be. They were almost perfectly round, though they fractured near the edges, and they rippled. The shape of the flat metal undulated and rolled like water just impacted by a stone.
The boy’s eyes moved. His red irises were thin rings around his dilated pupils as his knees bent and straightened. He was incredibly excited as he inspected the weapon in his hands.
A single imperfection contaminated the edge, albeit large and noticeable. It was cracked and dented, all the way across the flat of the blade.
Before the boy’s eyes, his toughest work snapped in two.
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Author's Note:
Hi! I had an idea. The idea should feed my writing enough to get out chapters on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, ideas are not infinite, and if I can't think of anything, I won't release some half-assed filler chapter.
Thank you so much for reading! I love to have feedback, so I would be glad to see your comments even if they're just letting me know that you're following the story.