Timothy slowly turned around to see Howard Crow standing in a dark corner of the room by the desk. He started to wonder how Howard could have survived the last encounter in the second door. Was he a ghost? An undead? Could he be a hallucination brought forward from deep within his subconscious? Then his mind wandered past these questions as a fearful thought entered his mind. He wanted to know what Zach could have done to warrant a man like Howard to arrive in his forge. Timothy searched Zach's memories for any trace of a reason but came up empty.

“Zach, what’s wrong? You look horrified,” Howard stated with a crooked smirk.

Timothy cautiously stepped backwards to put some distance between him and Howard, “I thought you were, um…dead.”

Howard scoffed at Timothy’s words, “Nope. Not yet at least.”

Timothy banged his back hard into the counter behind him, halting his retreat.

Howard gave Timothy a sideways glance, “You should be more careful, with your size you might break the counter. Speaking of which, you bulked out since we last saw each other,” he stared at the ceiling in thought to himself before continuing. “Gods, what? Twenty-five to thirty years ago.”

Timothy began to rack his brain for Zach’s memories of what Howard was talking about. At first, he thought the information was missing from Zach’s memory, but that wasn’t it. The connection between him and Zach was, for lack of a better term, fuzzy. What happened? Why the sudden change? Timothy started to run the past few minutes over in his head, looking for answers. After a short time, a thought came to him that could explain what was going on. Could the connection have weakened because of his confusion over Howard being in the room with him?

Howard was giving Timothy a curious look as he waited in silence.

Timothy took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down prior to reaching out for the connection again. He had to search through his own mind to find the bond, it was frayed causing most of the thoughts to terminate. Timothy repaired the link by reconnecting the ends, allowing the thoughts to pass back and forth. Zach’s consciousness welcomed Timothy back like an old friend as the symbiotic link returned. The memories came flowing back to him like a river once he reestablished the connection.

The two had been classmates at the Magic College of Murrsai more than a quarter century ago. Howard had thinned out since then, he remembered him as a short pudgy kid with a propensity for trouble. That set aside, Zach got along well with Howard during their time at the college. Zach would often reign Howard in when he was going to do something incredibly stupid. The opposite was also true, Howard could get Zach to come out of his shell and try something new. Many times forcing Zach to take some chances that he otherwise would not have taken. They made a good team during their time there, balancing each other out.

After graduation the two kept in touch for a while, but as years went by it became less and less often. Their lives got busy with work and their jobs pulled them further and further away from each other. It had been so long that Zach had almost forgotten about Howard, time eroding his memories of the past. Timothy could feel Zach's genuine pleasure to see his old friend so many years later.

Howard leaned down with his head cocked to one side looking at Zach’s confused expression. He was trying to understand what was going on in Zach’s head and why it was taking him so long to remember. He used his knuckles to knock on Zach's forehead in an effort to bring him out of his thoughts and back to reality.

“Are you okay?” Howard asked with slight amusement in his voice.

Timothy shook the cobwebs out of his head, “Ya, sorry Howard. It took me a little bit to put all the pieces together,” he hesitated before adding dryly, “You lost weight.”

Howard burst into laughter, “And you look like you can barely fit through a door.”

Timothy started laughing as well, “I guess that is what swinging a hammer all day does for ya, huh?”

“I guess so,” Howard replied. His eyes drifted to the basket of fruit on the counter and he realized how hungry he was, “Can I get one of those?” he said with a jerk of his head toward the fruit.

“Sure!” Timothy said with a smile as he picked one out of the basket and tossed it to Howard.

The two classmates sat and talked for a while, catching up on twenty-five years of lost time. They decided to take a quick walk across the street to the tavern and grab a bite to eat and a pint of beer. When they returned to the forge, Howard accompanied Timothy to the backyard. They continued their conversation as Zach worked on the order for the city. After a few more hours of them catching up, Howard got down to business and told Zach why he was here.

“So, what do you think? Can you build it for me?” Howard asked.

Timothy was looking over the rough schematics that Howard provided of a chair with iron bindings.

So that was it! This door is in-between the other two, Howard has not caught up with Desmond yet. Timothy thought as he figured out why Howard was alive.

“Can I build it? Yes. Should I build it?” Timothy was about to say no, but Zach’s memories pushed into his thoughts. The answer came out as a mix of the two, “Probably not, but I will.”

“Perfect! I need it tomorrow,” Howard said.

“Impossible, I need a week,” Timothy rebuffed, and it was not a lie. It was going to take him a few days to source the black gem, a day to build and a few days to forge the magic into the chair.

“I can’t wait that long,” Howard said with a deadly serious tone in his voice.

“I am sorry, but the best I can do is three days. And that is only if I can find a black gem for sale tomorrow morning. Even if I had the gem now, the best I could do is two and a half days,” Timothy informed Howard.

Howard plucked a black gem out of the air and tossed it to Zach, “Two and a half days you said?”

Timothy caught the gem and held it between his two fingers, looking it over with wonder.

“Yep,” he said absently as he turned and walked towards the forge inside. All but forgetting that Howard was there.

Howard watched Zach walk away, staring at the gem, as he walked toward the door of the main forge. Once the dwarf went inside Howard looked around the backyard for a good place to set up camp for the next few days. There were two trees in the far corner of the yard, spaced far enough apart for him to set up a hammock in-between. He walked over to the trees and removed his camping gear from his shadow storage. He spent a few minutes tying the hammock to the trees before he settled in for some rest while he waited.

Timothy walked into the forge, closing the door behind him before moving over to his workbench. He set the black gem into a golden fixture on the top of the bench’s workspace, continuing to stare at it. The fixture began to glow with a black light as a ring of gold encased the gem. The ring surrounding the gem was rippling with small waves that started at the top and cascaded down the sides. These waves stopped at the three and nine o’clock positions on the ring and grew with each wave that reached these positions. After a minute there were two distinct bumps at each position, Timothy took a step back, his suspicions confirmed. This is a tier 2 gem! This is only the second tier 2 gem he will have ever had the pleasure of forging.

The first one was a few years ago and he had forged it into the finest piece of armor he had ever made. He had forged a white tier 2 gem into a breastplate, and when it was finished, the armor had almost no weight. The secondary effect was that the metal armor moved like it was made of cloth. All weight and movement restrictions had been removed from the item. He had never made anything of that quality since.

It took him a while before he could stop looking at the gem in the identification fixture. Once his wonderment faded, he made his way over to his piles of wood and got to work on the construction of the chair. He chose a nice hardwood for the chair’s material and some steel for the bindings. Timothy spent the next several hours cutting and shaping the individual pieces before laying them out, ready for assembly.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

The actual assembly of the chair took little time at all, all the pieces fitting exactly as they should have. Again, Timothy was impressed at the efficiency with which Zach could craft items. Every cut was precise, and he never seemed to make a mistake. It was almost effortless.

After the chair was glued, assembled and stained he set it off to the side of the forge to allow everything to dry. While the chair was drying, Timothy went over to a small desk with jeweler’s tools on it and sat down. He began bending and shaping a socket for the black gem out of a silverish colored metal. When he finished shaping the socket he cleaned and polished it to a shine that reflected even the slightest amount of light. He eyed it closely, nodded in satisfaction, and set it on the corner of the desk.

Timothy got up from the desk and pulled the chair into the center of the room. He then went over to the forge and grabbed the handle of a hammer that was sticking out of the fires. The handle was cool to the touch while the head of the hammer looked like it was blazing with heat. The fires were contained inside the center of a large clear crystal head that looked incandescent in the darkening forge. No, not darkening. The light emanating from the hammer was so bright that it was making the well-lit forge look dim. Timothy grabbed a pair of dark goggles hanging from a hook by the forge and put them on. His vision was left with an afterimage of the bright hammer that took some time to diminish from his sight.

Once the afterimage faded out, Timothy went over to the desk and picked up the gem socket, bringing it over to the chair. He carefully set the socket on the top of the chairback and lined up his strike with the hammer. He pulled his arm back and in one quick strike, smashed the socket into the chair. There was an explosion of sparks and colors, the socket turned red hot and the wood started to smoke. As the two cooled, the base magic that the hammer imbued into the strike caused the socket and the chair to fuse as one. Now that the first stage of the forging process was complete, Timothy took the hammer over to the forge and set it back in the fires.

Timothy had been anxiously awaiting this part of the forging process. He was about to activate the magic ritual circle surrounding the center of the room. Zach had spent two years and a bunch of money to craft this permanent magic circle. It took so much effort to create that once he finished it, he broke through the wall to level 6. This was the single greatest magical achievement of his life. The circle was made of a combination of gold, silver and platinum set into the floor of the forge. It has a diameter of twenty feet, leaving room enough to forge almost any size item within its boundary.

Timothy retrieved the identification fixture with the gem in it and brought it within the metal ring. He set it down next to the chair then made his way to the edge. He took a knee and touched the circle with his index finger, projecting his will into the three metals. The magic circle snapped shut, calming the ambient magic. Timothy chanted using non-lexical sounds that helped him establish a state of mind ready to work with the mana, without the aid of a gem. He traced symbols in the air that hovered in place after they were completed. When he finished drawing all the symbols he directed the magic into them. They flared to life, twisting and turning in the air as they glowed from the mana they were focusing. Timothy closed his eyes and clapped his hands together, the symbols stopped moving. The mana started flowing toward and into him as he opened his eyes.

The moment his eyes opened he thought of what Rift had said, ‘It really is a sight to behold.’ Timothy thought that Rift had grossly understated what he was looking at. He was looking at a kaleidoscoping tapestry of colors full of energy that made him think that he was looking at the stuff of life itself. The beauty of it was stunning. He could die happy standing in the circle watching the colors dance in his vision, then Zach’s knowledge pushed through to Timothy. This is one of the dangers when using magic sight. People have gotten lost, sometimes for years, if they did not fight against the hypnotic movements of the mana. He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear his thoughts and break the hypnosis overtaking him.

It was time for the next stage of the forging process. Timothy went over to the forge, which was in the circle, and pulled the hammer out of the fires. He took it over to the center of the room and held it up to the symbol for life. The mana flowed into the crystalline head of the hammer as if it were a gentle breeze. The fires inside the hammer turned a vibrant green color, then timothy removed it from the mana stream. He raised the hammer and struck the seat of the chair. The green flames enveloped a small portion of the wooden seat and then subsumed into it. The wood was acting like a dry sponge to the magic. This process was necessary to build a foundation for all the other magics to rest on. If not, the magic effects being imbued into the chair would fade after time. He spent the next six hours filling the wood with the foundational magic. Each time needing to place the hammer back into the forge before it could pull in more mana.

The next part of the process was similar to the first. This time he needed to build a foundation into the metal bindings on the legs, arm rests and chair back. Instead of using the life symbol he pulled mana from the symbol focusing the mana for metals, the flames turning black. Even though there was less metal in the chair than wood, the process was going to take about the same amount of time. Metal is far more resistant to mana, even its own kind. This caused Timothy to have to make the same number of strikes to imbue it with the foundational magic.

Now that the foundational magic was in place he could start working with the gem. Timothy picked up the identification fixture and pressed a button on the side that released the black gem. He carefully placed it on top of the socket and then went to the forge to retrieve his hammer. Strike after strike, tap after tap he used different types of mana pulled in from the symbols floating around him. Gems are almost impossible to destroy except when forging. They can become brittle if the correct combination of mana is not used to set the gem into the socket. The combinations are constantly changing and different for each gem, even gems of the same color. This part of the forging took close to twelve hours and now Timothy understood why dwarves are such good forgers. He had been working for twenty-four hours straight, and Zach’s body and mind were as fresh as when they started. At the end of the twelfth hour the gem was locked into the socket.

The second to the last part of the process was to establish the flow of magic through the gem and into the chair. Directing it, showing it what it should do. He was building a blueprint over the chair for the magic to follow. Then he created a program that the chair would follow once the gem was activated. The process reminded him of the work he did back on Earth at RDS. After each strike he would make minor tweaks to the program to get it to act how he wanted it to. After hours of this the chair was doing exactly what it was supposed to. He was ready to finish the forging.

For the last step he had to leave the hammer in the forge for far longer than in previous times. He picked the goggles up off the hook and placed them over his eyes then pulled the hammer out of the fires. The hammer was so bright that Timothy could not look at it, even with the goggles on. The light made the forge look like it was outside in broad daylight, overpowering all other sources of light. He held it up to the middle of the floating symbols, it pulled in mana from every source, turning the head into a swirling rainbow of vibrant colors. When the hammer was full, he swung it at the gem with all his strength. It erupted into a hail of colored sparks, none of which hit the ground. The sparks covered every inch of the chair before fading out, forming a shell around the imbued magic. This shell would keep the magic from leaking out as well as protect it from ambient mana interfering with the purpose of the chair.

Timothy pulled his goggles off and looked at his creation. It was simple but elegant in design. The magic subtly hummed with power as it continued its curing process, the humming would fade out in a few hours. He walked over to the forge to put his hammer and goggles away then took a seat. He had to wait for the curing process to finish before he could break the circle. Otherwise, the ambient mana would disrupt the structured flows and could damage the chair’s magic.

After a few hours the chair had cured and the humming died out, Timothy got up from the chair and stretched. He made his way over to the edge of the circle and placed his finger on the metal ring in the floor. There was an audible “pop” as he broke the circle and the chaotic mana outside the circle rushed back in. He stood up and brushed himself off as he walked towards the back door and opened it.

He scanned the back yard and saw Howard sleeping in a hammock between two trees. He decided to yell to scare him awake, “HOWARD! It’s done.”

Howard didn’t startle, he just raised his head a bit and looked at Zach, “I am right here. No need to yell,” he said sarcastically and pivoted out of the hammock.

“Sorry, I thought you were asleep,” Timothy said with a smirk.

“How could anyone sleep with all that racket! You are a menace to the neighborhood, you know that, right?” Howard jeered.

“That is why this is not in a residential area,” he paused, “jerk!” Timothy jeered back.

The two walked inside the forge to see the magic item, chuckling at each other as they did. When Timothy opened the door for him, Howard walked in and headed straight for the chair. He ran a finger over it to feel the magic coursing through the wood and metal. Howard whistled as he looked at Zach, impressed. Timothy beamed and then went over all the features of the chair and how to activate it. It was simple, sit someone in the chair, clasp the bindings and then activate it by injecting your will into the gem. Howard looked satisfied but had some questions for Timothy.

“How much weight can it hold?”

“You would have to drop a house on it to break it. The tier 2 gem increased the weight limit significantly,” Timothy told him.

“What is the max level that the chair can hold?”

“The chair is level 6, but it should contain a level 7, maybe 8 without too much trouble. Again, the tier 2 gem bumped the power level up,” Timothy replied just as there was a knock at the back door.

It was early morning and some of his customers would arrive at this time to try and get first in line. Timothy put a finger up to Howard.

“Let me get that.”

“Go for it. I have taken enough of your time,” Howard said.

Timothy walked over to the door and grabbed the handle. He was not sure what came over him, but he spared a quick glance back at Howard. He and the chair were gone, a pile of coins left in its place. He shook his head and smiled.

“Typical,” Timothy said as he opened the door, it was Constable Grady.

“Good morning Zach. Are the weapons and armor ready?” She asked.

“Oh shi…”