Valter rolled his shoulders to bring the waterproof hide higher on his shoulders and against his neck. His gaze bounced between alleyways and shadows that might hide a person.

The rain and clouds covered the sun that he’d guessed to be around midday.

Waste that had been thrown into the open gutters on the sides of the main roads was swept away with the day’s rain.

Valter pushed it all from his mind. Getting out of this city was the priority. Then he could make sure Xander stayed dead.

“This is me. See you later.” Desari checked the sign to an alchemy store again and walked up to the door.

“See you.” Valter pulled the hide around himself more, checking the signs of the different smithies.

The black smoke was the first indication he’d found the right place, then the sound of hammers on metal.

He slowed his pace and set his gaze into his storage rings. They were organized with military precision: raw metals, various fuels, ingots and alloys, tools, and a snow globe that contained his mobile smithy.

Then were the weapons of every type and kind. Each labeled with what their inscription was and its effect. His armor was last, resting upon a mannequin.

With a thought, the armor opened, revealing the intricate inscriptions within. The inscriptions were filled with a deep orange mixed with yellow, all of them except for his left shin guard and boot.

A metal peg leg floated into his view, steel and unremarkable from the outside. It slid apart. “Mithril is still all there.” The silvery and lightweight metal didn’t have a blemish on it. The inscriptions that had taken him weeks and countless chisels were filled with solid Yellow core crystal.

Valter’s gaze turned inward to his own core.

Not a shard anymore—a miniature Red core mixed with Orange. Some within him, the rest filled into the soul binding channels and runes of his armor.

It had brought him so much pain, though it was not to blame. It had saved his life, too, and through it, he’d saved many others. Images of fights, last expressions of dying men and women, popped up.

He closed his eyes and breathed out, banishing the images, and he continued his checks. The armor and peg moved away. Guess I’m going to have to make something different than a peg leg for that mithril.

While the part of his core in his old leg was yellow, the rest was Orange, built from steel.

“Going to need to upgrade the material of the armor else my internal core will be stronger than it.” That would create an imbalance and hold him back. A sixth of his core a level or several higher than the rest.

He needed to find more mithril to create armor to house the other four parts of his core. If he didn’t, the thing that had allowed him a greater advantage over other fighters would turn into a hinderance.

He checked through his books on languages, on histories of various nations, different gods, dossiers on people of interest.

His gaze slowed to look at a carved plate of metal: Valter grinning with Annabelle on his shoulders, laughing Asha rolling her eyes at both with clear love, her hand on Devin’s shoulder between him and Asha, a wide smile on his face, missing one of his front teeth.

A doll of a bear/rabbit sat next to the metal plate. A threadbare thing that had been repaired several times, burned and stained black on one side.

He slowly withdrew his gaze and studied where he’d wandered to, surrounded by the sounds of smiths hard at work.

Alan’s Forge was written in hammered metal, nailed into a thick signboard above twin doors that opened like a barn.

The doors to the forge were open. A stream of guild members, guards, and people looking for something to defend themselves filled the storefront of the forge.

Valter looked down the side of the building to where a door hung open to the forge in the rear of the building. He walked down the alley, pulling out his paper and hitting the door.

A woman spotted him and walked over. “Big bastard, ain’t ya,” she said, hands on her hips.

“Guild told me to come here.” He handed her the paper.

She squinted at it and shrugged. “Looks right to me. We’ll start you off refining. We got a lot of iron that needs to be turned into steel stock. You know how to do that?”

Valter gave a slow nod.

“Great.” Sarcasm dripped from every word. “Use that forge there. Iron is in the black bucket, the coke is in the blacker one.” The woman grinned at her own joke.

A few other smiths laughed.

“What kind of steel do you want?”

“The kind that’ll hold an edge and not bend against a maiden’s ass.”

Valter nodded and walked through the space, taking the hide from his shoulders and hanging it up near the forge in the corner.

“Ran out of smith hobbyists, now they’re sending us anything big who can swing a hammer. Fucking guildies,” he overheard her mutter to her coworkers, who let out chuckles.

He paid her no attention. In this kind of work, you had to prove yourself first to get any kind of respect.

The coals had been allowed to burn down.

Sighing, Valter pulled out an apron from his storage device. He cleaned up his workspace, then the forge.

He moved to the two buckets, checking the broken-up iron and coke. Using a screen, he separated out the coke into uniform pieces and broke up the remainder to the same size as the rest.

He used fire bricks to make a circle in the back of the forge, filling it with charcoal, wood, and kindle, setting it alight.

“That should do nicely.” He leaned against the wall, pulling out a book made of metal, its front scarred and pitted.

The half-smoothed sides of the book pressed against his thumbs. This body doesn’t have the callouses. He ran his thumb against the slight burrs of the book. He could feel for the first time in a long time.

Lighter memories, of working in the smithy, coming home to Asha, tucking Annabelle and Devin into bed. Stroking their cheeks, soft to the world. Untouched by its harshness.

Valter opened the book with a sigh. Metals, ways to purify, alloy and temper. Different weapons and creations.

He’d started it before he’d been entombed in armor, no more than a weapon of war pointed at his emperor’s enemies. My only solace between the campaigns and fights. He pressed a finger to a page, drawing out a rune and tapping two parts.

The book expanded with a hidden section. Weapons, armors, thoughts, inscriptions: items and ideas too powerful to pass on.

He breathed in, looking at those pages. He’d sundered Xander’s soul into hundreds of shards, split and spread across the empire, between battlefields.

To kill a god. He closed the book. He would have to put the ideas he’d copied down faithfully to the test.

“For now, steel.”

He checked the nest he’d made in the midst of the forge.

An older boy in his teens watched him as he moved through the smithy, bringing in metals, charcoal, and coke, keeping the smiths well supplied.

Valter sifted iron through a sieve into a spare bucket. Anything too big he took chisel and hammer to, breaking it till it went through.

Small amounts of iron, little air, lots of coke repeatedly.

The boy hesitated at the edge of Valter’s area, forgetting himself.

“I’m breaking up the iron and the coke to make sure they’re uniform size. That way, they’ll burn and heat evenly. I use a large screen on top to allow through everything at the size I need. The second screen takes out all the stuff that’s too small. Then, whatever is left on the screen I can use.” Valter tipped the screen of metal into a waiting bucket and looked at the boy.

“Oh.” The boy shrunk in on himself.

“You learning how to smith?”

“I’m just a runner right now, getting material for Mister Alan and the other smiths. But I hope one day.” He perked up.

A slow smile spread across Valter’s face. “I’m Valter.” He reached out a hand.

“Gus.” The boy gave a gap-toothed smile and grabbed his hand in a firm, albeit awkward handshake.

“Well, Gus, if you can keep the iron and coke coming, I’ll let you ask one question each time you give me a refill. How about it?”

“Really?”

“Sure. Got to start learning somewhere.”

“Why are you putting the fire bricks that way?”

“It’s easier to make a high carbon steel with a smaller hearth. You need focused heat and constant layering of iron and coke. A circle allows the heat to spread equally and being smaller, you don’t have to feed it a huge amount of coke and iron.”

“Smaller hearth, more heat, less iron and coke, heats everything equally,” Gus said back, looking at the hearth.

“Gus!”

The boy nearly jumped.

“Catch you later, lad.” Valter chuckled.

“Thank you, sir.” Gus ran off.

“All right.” He reached out to his fire brick circle and closed his eyes, sensing the heat and turning his head from side to side. Needs a little more. He grabbed a scoop of coke, putting it onto the coals, and used the bellows. He held his hand out again and nodded once in satisfaction.

“Just right.” He sprinkled the iron chunks onto the coke, with another scoop on top. So it went: a small amount of iron and a scoop of coke every few minutes.

He grabbed tongs and dug into the coke mix, finding a misshapen clump of steel. He pulled it to the anvil, tapping his hammer against it, and hit the misshapen clump, working quickly as the steel cooled.

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“That’s the stuff.”

Essence flowed into him at the completion of the steel.

Been a long time since making something of the uncommon grade has given me that much experience.

The Orange continued to overtake the Red within his core.

He hammered the steel into a rough square shape and put it off to the side.

Valter took more iron and sprinkled it over the still-hot coke, layering coke on top of that, repeating the layers all the way up again and topping it with stones.

Turning iron to steel is worth the same essence as killing someone with a Red core.

He studied the different hearths, each passively increasing his essence. Crafting a few steel weapons would really crank up the essence gain. They’d be worth taking out a few Red Flecked with Orange fighters, if I can make them Artisian. A small smile spread across his face. If he could turn them into masterworks, he could get the same essence that came from Red Mixed with Orange.

A bald, scarred smith walked over, picking up the ingot. He pulled out a small gem and put it on a pedestal; mana filled channels and runes with a glow. The belt next to the pedestal moved. The belt spat out sparks, and the man snatched the gem away, carefully putting it into a pocket.

“Three gold for every ingot this size.” He held it up and walked away.

Valter used fire bricks to create two more hearths and set to repeating the process. If I offset them enough, then I can hammer the ingots out between the others being ready.

Gus passed with a cart of ash.

“Lad, could you get me some more fire bricks?”

“Can I get my questions?”

“Sure thing.” Valter smiled.

“Coming right up, Mister Valter!” He pushed his cart faster, disappearing.

He opened up the stone brick hearths, pulling the steel from them, getting into a rhythm. Essence spread through his core as he reset the hearths with more iron and coke, while Gus would run supplies for him and ask him questions.

The day swung by as Valter felt his core swell and change. The last of the Red was driven out by the Orange that filled his core.

His core swelled and then compressed, his channels spread out, carving out old paths, following the way they’d grown before his death. Newly acquired old senses came to life.

The feel of the hearth, the flame, the metal. A barrier between them dissolved away like greeting an old friend. He resonated with the metal, with the heat, he tapped the forge, the desire to take out his hammer, to heat, to form, to tease from rough to worked. An excitement built within him, an old familiarity.

“Here you are, Mister Valter,” Gus said, a bit out of breath, with sweat working through the ash on his forehead.

Valter released the feeling, moving slowly and carefully. It would take him awhile to get used to his newfound strength. A new color was always a bit more of a rush, adding the same amount of power that a flecked or mixed core might.

“Thank you, lad. And what is your question?”

“Why did Mister Alan put the steel against the sharpener?”

“The higher the carbon content of the steel, the more sparks it will make. They’ll be white and they go everywhere. Lower carbon, less sparks. You could also run a file over it to test the strength. Some people will slim a piece out and quench it, then hammer on it. If it breaks clean, then it is good steel. If it bends, then it probably doesn’t have a high enough carbon content.” Valter lifted the bricks into the forge as he talked.

“Why do you need a higher carbon content?”

“Makes the iron into steel, which is stronger and easier to sharpen.”

“Oh.” Gus nodded to himself.

Valter put the last brick under the chimney flue. “Might need some more iron and coke in a little bit.”

“Okay, see you in a bit, Mister Valter.” Gus smiled and hurried off to his other tasks.

Valter fed his first brick hearth and put the other two together.

“Hearths in the forge.” He frowned at the odd turn of words.

Valter rolled his shoulders. The heat from the forge woke his body as he sank back into a rhythm: watching the different fire brick circles, mixing coke and iron and then pulling out the products and hammering them square.

Gus came around with more coke and iron, asking his question about quenching, and why smiths hit their hammers on the anvil as they worked. His questions made Valter dive into his smithing knowledge and check what his book said.

The Orange in his core spread with each finished ingot.

He kept the ingots the same standard. To increase them would take a lot more effort, and it would have been easier with gear he didn’t want to use in the open.

The bonus that came from smithing something of a higher level than his own disappeared. Another twelve ingots, and I’ll step into Orange flecked with Yellow.

Smithing anything of a lower quality than your core you earned less essence, taking many more products to raise your level.

Two stages below, and you earn nothing at all.

Valter looked into the flames. They’d leveled quickly due to only having White cores and fighting people with stronger cores than them. Crafting would supplement their levels and bring them higher. He’d need to fight at least someone of the Red mixed with Orange stage to earn essence.

How much iron had he shaped? Steel he had made, inscribed in secret. How many had he killed, as one of the God-Emperor’s Anointed?

He closed his hand, as if it would block his ears against what he had heard that night. What his fellow Anointed had been bade to do. Ordered upon their holy oaths.

The fire twisted in the hearth. His body remained as his mind turned back.

“Mir! There’s no soldiers in the village.” Valter stepped forward, his voice harsh from the fires that burned the homes at the fringe of the small village.

His armored boots sunk into the muddy ground. Each and every one of his brothers wore their Sarcophagi Immortalias. All a hand and a head taller than any normal man.

Stains of old battles, iron markers, and ribbons showed their accolades, or where the last wearer’s accolades had been cut off, shorn metal waiting for their contribution.

Four watched the villagers in the square; several were sporting bruises or broken bones. The strength of the Sarcophagi pushed each to reach new heights beyond what their core would allow. Strength used on battlefields against titans. For they were mortals no more.

Mir turned in his armor, more familiar than his face these days. The leader of their squad. Twenty strong, brother-in-arms before they ever stepped into their anointed armors, before they became chosen.

That time before the madness.

“The order was to kill everyone in the village. Everyone—not soldiers and fighters, just anything that drew breath.” His words were hammer blows that struck Valter’s chest.

He saw it in his eyes then, the understanding, the disgust and the duty pressed upon his soul that stained it with its very weight.

“The God-Emperor’s orders are our law. Not one is to be left alive.” His helmet moved, his eyes cast back into shadow in the flickering flame. “Give them quick mercy from this plane, brothers. Let them get peace this night.”

Mir was the first to turn to the villagers. “Children first. They deserve to see the least.” He stepped forward; people begged and cried and pleaded. Others were yelling…they didn’t understand.

They turned one by one toward the villagers. Valter felt it, the compulsion within his chest, with his oath.

An itch that grew with each passing second.

A blade swung, and cries rose.

Valter turned with his brethren and followed after them. What god would ask, no—demand—such a thing from his faithful? Bound to his very will?

Valter’s blows were surgical and precise, killing without suffering. Death took his deliveries, the two partners in the trade. Each cut and stab a new oath, a new writ and promise. Long he had turned a blind eye…he would no longer. This ended with blood.

Valter breathed out, coming back to his hearth in Alan’s Forge.

He’d gone through three buckets and put his latest ingot on the table. He looked up, sensing a pair of eyes.

The bald man that had tested his ingots moved up to his working area. From the chatter, Valter took him to be Alan, the owner of the forge.

“You know how to forge,” Alan said.

“Yes.” Valter’s throat was hoarse. He coughed and pulled out a canteen.

“You got your own tools?”

“Yes.”

Alan tapped the iron ingot again and pointed at the two fire brick hearths in the forge. “Finish up the remaining ingots, then make me ten spearheads like that.” He pointed the ingot at spearheads next to two women fixing them on wooden shafts.

“Okay.” Valter grinned.

“Use that forge. One of the ‘experts’ the guild sent over will take your spot.” He pointed to another forge, leaving for his own forge and taking the ingot with him.

Valter walked over to the two working on spears; they glanced up at him as he picked up the spearhead and continued their work. He turned it over in his hands, taking out measuring tools and writing down information on one of the ingots with a bit of charcoal.

He returned to his hearth, finishing off the two remaining ingots. As he left, another man stepped into the space, scratching the back of his head.

The man looked between the coke and iron buckets to the three fire block circles in the forge. “Shit. I’m a smith, not a refiner.”

Valter ignored the man, headed for the forge Alan had pointed to.

He cleaned the area, prepared his coke how he wanted it, and pulled out lengths of steel stock, putting them on the workbench, based on size and shape.

Petor’s going to need a new spear soon, or I can lend him mine.

The look on Petor’s face when he’d used his own spear after Valter’s stuck in his mind. Made of just steel and wood, it was a fine weapon but the materials weren’t conductive to mana. And there were certainly no inscriptions on it for someone to empower their attacks.

He glanced back at the spearheads being assembled. The majority were worse than his.

He wouldn’t sell one of these to Petor. It didn’t even test the limits of his ability. He’d worry about making such a weapon for another. But Petor’s actions revealed who he was, helping that young family and man. The way he fought beside Valter to cover his openings.

With the proper armor and weapons… A spark flared within his heart. Just what a beast he could turn him into…a few enchantments on his armor and weapons to boost his strength.

He took in a breath, iron and coal and coke burning his nose. To him, it was a calming incense. He drew out his tools, well-worn and carved with runes along their lengths, putting them to the side in easy reach.

He shifted to check the forge and the coals, moving fresh coals around those that were already white and red.

“Time we began.” He pulled out a length of steel stock, heating it in the forge’s coals.

Once up to temperature, he picked up his hammer. The runes burned into its length and head flared to life as he poured mana into it. His senses resonated with the metal seeing through it, feeling the mix of carbon and iron, its temperature.

He hit the steel to stretch it. As the steel rang out, it was as if he had struck a bell within his own body. His movements adjusted, shifting his feet, his fingers. A deep feeling of peace, of familiarity filled him.

He flattened out one side; then, using the shelf on the anvil and the angled end of his hammer, he started rounding it.

Something was coming undone in his chest, in his mind. The world faded away as everything became about the materials, the slight hits and taps. Information and reactions built into his every movement, imprinted upon his very soul.

The socket of the spear formed. A sprinkle of flux, a thrust into the forge with a flare of light, and it was fused.

He drew out the other side to the length he needed, creating a leaf shape and tapering down the edges.

Valter turned it and checked it.

“What are you looking for?” Gus asked.

Valter grinned. “Looking to make sure that the socket is welded closed well. That way, it don’t break off the spear’s shaft. Make sure that it’s straight and true.”

“It’s not sharp, though.” Gus frowned.

“Once it’s heat treated and, on its shaft, then you can sharpen it down. Didn’t know you had any more questions left.” Valter raised an eyebrow.

“Coke.” The boy raised a bucket with both hands and that gap-toothed smile.

Valter chuckled and shook his head, putting the spear into the coals to heat it up for the treatment, and tossed in another length of stock for the next spearhead.

Gus dumped his coke and ran off to other tasks.

Valter drew out the first spearhead and quenched it.

Essence flowed through him, twice of what he’d earned making the ingots.

Time faded away, fatigue an old friend. Valter’s hammer blows became more refined: what took ten blows, took nine, then eight, and continued down.

His speed increased as his quality climbed.

A lifetime of smithing—a dedication to the craft—flowed through him. There was no such thing as tiredness, but a state of mild satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Flecks of Yellow formed and swirled in his core as he finished one spear head after another. Channels spread through his body, threads of mana weaving through them without conscious thought. He could tell the state of the metal by the ring of the hammer. The heat seemed to respond to his thoughts, raising the temperatures in the areas he needed.

It was a trance, a state of flowing action, understanding and reaction.

I hit that wrong. That length is too much, adding in weakness. There’s too much steel there to create an imbalance. Imperfections were burrs in his mind that opened to a world of knowledge. Mistakes were wastes of effort, a burning of precious time.

He finished his latest spear, turning it in his tongs and grimacing at it. Other smiths talked to one another; catching his eye, they looked away quickly.

Valter was close to mixing Yellow into his Orange core. The level of the spearheads were at the same level. Making more, his essence gain would drop.

Gus ran up to take the latest spearhead.

“You got anything stronger than this steel?”

Gus frowned and shook his head. “No. I’ve heard of materials like othir and dimantium, but those are rare as heaven’s tears here.”

Valter grunted. Well, shouldn’t pull that out too easy then.

“Gus!” someone yelled.

“I’ll go grab some more steel stock for you, Mister Valter.”

“Just Valter, lad.”

Gus grinned and ran off with the spearheads.

Running with spearheads don’t seem the smartest move.

Valter rolled his eyes and picked up a piece of scrap metal.

I have my armor, so does Desari. Petor’s isn’t much to look at but it’s serviceable. Mya is going to need something, though cloth with reinforced points will work better for her. Petor has worked in a fighting formation. His attacks have been modified from that to meet his current needs.

Petor and he were going to be the front of whatever fight they were in. Desari and Mya were great with swords, but their ranged attacks were better put to use in the rear.

He slipped his dagger free and tapped it against the scrap metal, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought. In his mind, he replayed their fights. The one thing I can change to have the greatest impact is his spear.

“A steel spear is only going to last him so long,” he muttered, rubbing his chin and growing stubble.

Valter let his ideas and thoughts flow into the metal, using his dagger as fluidly as one would use a brush. Ideas rose, added, and altered to the original plan with each iteration.

Yellow, like golden dust, flecked his core as he finished. His channels expanded again, the same form they’d had before he’d died.

“I wonder what will happen with the next stage.” New channels, new strength. I’m going to need to find mithril and soon if I want to get stronger.

And if he could get Mithril the material would be strong enough to hold two enchantments. His current power came from his flawless use of his armor as if it was his own skin. Added strength would certainly give an additional edge.

“Valter, more steel stock!”

“Thank you, Gus.” Valter put down his last ruminations and fed the stock into the forge. He added in notations as he worked, testing out ideas on the steel, adding in channels and studying them, his notes an eclectic work of techniques, notes, runes, and diagrams.