I've been in this forest a quarter of a year so far. A little longer actually, and I still know way less about this place and how it works than I should.

*CLANG*

But that dwarf should be able to tell me a good amount. If not, at least I still have a job.

*CLANG*

I just hope I can live up to whatever expectations he has for me, otherwise it's back to wandering the streets for me...

*CLANG* … *CLANG*

What's that noise? I keep hearing it, over and over. It's getting annoying.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

It's getting faster now, just what is that noise...?

My eyes open, at that moment I realized I had been sleeping. I was sitting on the ground, with my back against a wall.

I turn my head to the left and see the dwarf hammering away on the anvil. That must've been the noise I've heard.

"So yer finally up huh? Way to make a first impression, spending the night, and I don't even know yer name!" He took a quick glance at me before he kept swinging his hammer.

"Oh, sorry sir, I was... *yawn* ...was just really tired before I got here." I told him, standing up while doing so. He put his hammer down and used a pair of forging tongs to grab the hot metal and lay it halfway in the forge.

"Yeah yeah, Ya keep spouting excuses, but none of 'em are yer name." He said, now facing towards me.

"Right, I'm Gen Justarios." I tell him, reaching out my hand.

"Well Gen, It's a pleasure to meet ya, they call me Grav!" As he said this, he grabbed my hand and began to shake it, his grip was strong, and it slightly hurt my hand.

"Grav?" I asked, wondering if I heard him right.

"Yep, the old man was a bit of a jokester and he loved his sediments." He laughed as he said this.

"But that ain't what's of import' right now. Here, put this on." He handed me a heavy leather apron. I put it over my head and tied the strap behind my back, It was short and barely went past my waist...

"Um, what exactly are my duties, Grav?" I asked him.

"Please, call me 'Sir'." He corrected me, before I could apologize continued talking.

"If ya think yer gonna go straight into the fire and start hammering away, think again. I got standards my customers expect, I ain't about to let some greenhorn go an' mess that up." I guess that would make sense, I don't know what I was expecting.

"Okay, so would I just be watching you or something?" I asked again.

"No. Well, yes. But yer gonna be doing more than that. I'll tell ya what exactly as we get to it." He turned back as he was saying this, grabbing the metal that had been heating up, and continued to hammer it into shape.

I just watched him from across the room for a little while, despite his informal way of talking, I could tell he was serious about what he did. It's like he could already see the final product, and he was just guiding the metal into shape. It was mesmerizing.

"Alright Kid, first order of business, get me one of them minor manakyte stones. I did ya the favor of labeling 'em." He told me, snapping and pointing at a shelf that had some boxes on it.

On the shelf was indeed a series of labels, they listed off the different qualities of manakyte stones.

"Lesser < Minor < Base < Enhanced < Greater < Pure" The labeling said.

There weren't any stones after 'Base', so I guess that's as good as he had. Like he asked, I grabbed a minor manakyte stone, and brought it to him.

I could feel the mana coming out of it. The amount was surprising, considering it was only supposedly the second lowest grade. By the time I handed it to him, I stopped feeling most of the mana.

"Hey Kid... I asked ya for a minor stone, this one's lesser." Grav informed me.

"What? But it was in the box labeled minor manakyte stones." I told him, explaining myself.

"So you mean to say it lost enough mana on the way over, that it dropped a grade?" He countered. Then I realized what had happened.

I had accidently taken most of the mana from the stone, leaving it with barely any left. After realizing this, I asked him for a pair of gloves.

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Afterwards, I grabbed the minor manakyte stone and gave it to him without incident. He placed the stone onto the metal and struck it with the hammer, shattering the stone. Bits and pieces of the stone fused into the metal, he then put it back into the fire of the forge.

The day continued like this for a few more hours. In order to get better, I had started taking notes on what he was doing and the techniques he used.

After a while, the sword he was making had finally taken shape. I then used the tongs to grab the blade by the tang and walk it over to a vat of red liquid.

I looked over his shoulder as he dunked the sword into the liquid, it began to bubble up as the sword was rapidly cooled.

"What are you doing now?" I asked Grav, he slightly looked back as he held the sword completely under.

"I'm quenching the blade in blood, the manakyte in it makes the metal tougher. Much more than any water or oil." He told me. I was a little shocked that he was using blood for this process.

"Wait, I thought blood was the color of someone's magic. This is just red." I asked him. He scoffed before answering.

"For people, sure. But, this here's yak blood. Northern Timber Yaks specifically. Cost me a fortune to have it carted all the way down here, but it was worth it."

I still had a lot to learn... but, on the subject of blood, I hadn't drunk any of Grav's blood, nor the blood from any other dwarves, and yet, I was able to understand him perfectly fine.

"Um, Grav, sir?" I tried to get his attention. He pulled the sword out of the Yak blood and set it down before turning to me.

"What Kid?" He responded.

"Up to now, you've been speaking, English, haven't you?" Asking him this made his face surprised for a moment.

He walked around the room for a moment before turning back and answering me.

"I haven't heard anyone call it that in a long time, and last time sure as hell wasn't from someone as young as you." He told me. So he knew what I was talking about. I had to get more information, I didn't know when my next chance would be.

"Everyone I've met until now used their own language, like Elvish and Demese. Why do you speak English? How do you know about it?" I pressed for more information.

"Kid, I should be asking the same to you, I was a little taken aback when ya first spoke to me in English, but I assumed ya had yer reasons. But it ain't called English, not anymore at least." He told me.

"What do you mean?" I responded.

"First things first, the name people use for it now is 'Old Blood'. Most people still understand it, but barely anyone uses it anymore. Most Dwarves use it occasionally, but our official language is 'Dwarvic'." He continued to explain.

"After what happened, most people just flat out refused to speak it, but it was still in our blood, so the language could never truly die out."

"Wait, you mean everyone knows English, or sorry, 'Old Blood'?" I continued inquiring about what happened with the language.

"Yeah Kid, that's what I just said. As I was saying; After what the humans did, people shunned anything related to 'em, language included." As he said this, it only left me with more questions.

What did humans do? I knew there was something going on that made mentioning them bit taboo, but if whatever happened was bad enough for everyone kill a language, I had to learn about it. As I opened my mouth to ask more questions, the door swung open and someone stepped through.

"Hold that thought Kid, we can discuss this later, but right now, we're still on working hours, so customers come first." Grav told me. It was disappointing, but at least I could find out about it later.

The person who came in, or I think they were a person, was well dressed, and greeted Grav by name, so I'd assume they were pretty close. They had the physique of a man, but their head was covered in fur and they had a snout, he looked very similar to a dog, but his face was more expressive than one.

"Well well, look at this. I didn't think you'd ever actually take on someone as your apprentice. A demon too for that matter." The man looked at me as he said this. I just stared back.

"Yeah well, the kid surprised me, and that's pretty hard to do. As for introductions, Findal, this is my new errand boy, Gen. Gen, this is the bastard that keeps me in business, Findal." Grav introduced us.

Findal stuck out his hand, I shook it in response. His fingers ended in short claws, much like an animal's paw. He must've seen I was staring, because he commented on it.

"What? First time seeing a beastkin or something?" He asked me.

"Um, yeah actually... Sorry about that." I responded, I was embarrassed that he called me out on it.

"Well, don't be. I get it, usually we're so busy with the upper management side of things, we don't get much time to work on our public image." He assured me it was alright, but I wasn't sure what he meant by 'upper management'.

"Alright, enough of this introduction rabble. Findal, you don't ever come out of the longing to see an old friend, so what is it ya got for me this time." Grav held out his hand, waiting to receive whatever it was Findal had.

"Big request this time, but, even bigger spender." Findal handed Grav a rolled up piece of paper. Grav opened it and gave it a quick once over.

"Yeah, well, tell 'em I can't do something like that. I'm fresh out of enhanced manakyte stones, and they're hard enough to order in advance. This short of a notice ain't gonna happen." Grav explained.

"True, but you aren't exactly a one man show anymore now, are you?" Findal said, flicking his eyes towards me.

Grav looked over at me, and pondered something for a minute. tapping his foot on the ground.

"Hmm... Alright fine, but don't get yer hopes up. I ain't a miracle worker after all." Grav grumbled.

Findal had a satisfied look on his face, and left after nodding to both of us.

"Alright kid, change of plans, ya actually get to do something now." Grav told me, while walking over to the corner of the shop to grab something.

"Um, What is it you're gonna have me do?" I asked. He threw me a small pouch and a pickaxe with a rope tied to it at two points.

"Yer gonna save me on shipping costs. I need ya to go to the manakyte mine nearby and fill that pouch with enhanced manakyte stones." He said.

"But sir, I've never been to the mine, or any mine for that matter. I'd have no idea what to do." I tried explaining I wasn't the right man for this job.

"Oh sure ya do, just take that pickaxe I gave ya and use it to smack the shiniest rock in there. You'll be fine." Grav was insisting that I'd do this.

He handed me a map that showed me which roads to take to reach the mine, and pushed me towards the door.

"Also, if you don't do this... Yer fired." He was smiling as he said this, but I had no idea if he was serious or not.

"A-Alright sir-" As I said this, he slammed the door in my face, leaving me at the foot of the stairs leading out to the street.

I walked down the street that lead to the gate out of the city.

I guess I should be able to get more information about what humans did to get everyone to hate them after I finish this.

With that thought, I slung the pickaxe over my back and attached the pouch to my hip. With the map in hand, I began down the road towards the mine.