The forge crackled beside Ray as he forged a set of intricate mechanisms that would form the trigger piece for a crossbow. He had already completed the process 20 times and only had 30 to go before the assembly process could begin. Freia would normally help him with such a large order, but she was currently out procuring another shipment of lumber after the large order of arrows completely wiped out their last one. Ray set the next set of still-glowing pieces to the side as he pulled out another chunk of iron and began molding it into the correct shape. He wiped a large trail of sweat from his brow several hours later as he stepped away from the forge. He walked into the workshop to see if Freia had returned yet, but found it empty. With nothing else to do, he walked over to a less cluttered table that had become his personal workbench over the past month and looked over the unfinished prototype that sat there. It was a small round ball with unfinished, runic symbols carved into it. Ray pulled a stool over, sat down, and continued the process of painstakingly carving each line into the sphere, making sure to not cut too deep. While it may only be a negligible change, he did not need any changes that could throw off his calculations when it came to something as complicated as teleportation.
CRASH!
Ray dug his carving tool far too deep into the sphere side as a loud noise coming from just outside the door made him jump to his feet. He looked down at the now ruined project before muttering several obscenities under his breath and marching towards the door. He hurled the sphere onto a large pile of similarly shaped, flawed objects, saving them for later study so he could learn from the imperfections and create a perfect final product. Throwing the door open in a huff, Ray prepared to scream at whoever had interrupted his progress but stopped when he saw Kenith, the second youngest of Zenith's children, only 8 years old. Collapsed under a pile of striped logs.
“Are you ok?” Ray asked, his anger turning to worry.
“Ow,” the scale kin said while standing up
He was wearing a forest green tunic and leggings that clashed against his crimson scales. Like Freia, his humanoid form still left him looking closer to his natural self, with scales covering his head to toe, a pointed snout protruding from the front of his face, and two horns growing from the back of his skull.
“Please don’t tell my sister about this. She will be pissed if she finds out that I tried to carry more than one log down at a time.”
“She should be. You're lucky that you weren't badly injured with a fall like that.”
“Please Ray, I'll give you my serving of dessert tonight.”
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“I won’t be bribed so easily.”
“Aw come on, please.”
“Tell you what, I won't tell your sister about this if you promise to always listen to her instructions from now on.”
“B-But,”
“Fre-”
“NO, stop I promise.”
“Good, then let's get this mess cleaned up before Freia sees.”
“Before I see wha-” Freia turned the corner of the large spiral staircase, seeing the mess of logs and splinters at the bottom.
She turned with a murderous glint in her eyes. Ray quickly threw one of the scattered logs over his shoulder before running towards the open door.
“You're on your own for this one.”
Several minutes of yelling later, Freia finally entered the room.
“So? how did it go?” Ray asked.
She let out a long, tired sigh before answering.
“I may have been too harsh on him, but he understands why I tell him to do things a certain way now.”
“It's better he finds out now rather than when he is missing the left half of the body after dropping two crates of something explosive.”
“You're right, but I don’t even know if that would damage him. I have seen that boy take a fireball to the face and shrug it off like someone had thrown nothing more than a flickering candle.”
Ray’s eyes went wide as he imagined Kenith shrugging off an explosion.
“Why do you think he is so durable?” Ray asked.
“Don’t know, all us that have humanoid forms closer to what we normally look like have increased durability, like what allows me to grab red hot steal without the use of gloves, but that kid is on another level. Anyhow, we got an order to finish up and I don’t want to be here at midnight again.”
Ray nodded in agreement and then began crafting each crossbow. The next day, he awoke with an almost surreal feeling. Today he would actually go on a date and not with just anyone, but the person he could confidently call his closest friend. A goofy smile crept onto his face as he got ready and made his way down to the training grounds. He walked out the door, entering the large clearing, and his smile suddenly faded when he saw the sight in front of him. He expected to see Arabella, but he was also surprised to see Igi and his students; however, that was not what caused his smile to turn into a frown. What did that was the sheet white shade of Igi’s students.