The other apprentices and journeymen showed up on time, sighing when they once again saw their master and Sama there before them, and bustled around opening things up for business. There were multiple things to work on at any given time, one thing being heated while another was being hammered, one thing poured into molds while other things were cooling fast or slow. The apprentices wasted no time, moving with practiced motion and ease in their morning tradition, calling out in their genetic tongue, confirming the work schedule for today once again, and placing things where they needed to be handy when it was time to shift from one item to the next.

While there was mass production around, nobody with any money wanted something stamped out in a factory. The magic of a craftsman was a thing that didn’t carry through on machinery. While ‘functional’ QL and technology level could be high for, say, a pot or pan people picked up at the store, from a magical standpoint such things were dross scrap and useless for enchanting.

QL was QL. Machines could make high QL stuff very easily, but none of it could be improved magically, limiting it to pure tech use. A craftsman who could make high QL stuff was making stuff at least as good as the machine, but suffused with the power of a maker; magic could then grab hold and make it perform beyond its means.

Few dwarves were actually spellcasters, as the only Tradition open to them was Divine Magic, and they didn’t all get Called to serve. Their natural resonance with Earth made them very resistant to magic and poison, but also made almost all other forms of magic impossible for them to wield.

That said, they took to Artificing with marvelous ease, and their Runecrafting basically set the standard for all other races. Doing with Crafting alone what the Powered did with spells, dwarves had no problems churning out things in metal and stone with magic minor and mighty, as their clients demanded.

“What are you working on today, Sama?” asked Mord Blakhamar, by far the biggest fellow in the place. He was a dhatun, a half-dwarf, and stood a head taller than the other apprentices, while being just as stout and burly. His beard was short, but black as ink, considered very fetching among the dwarves, and he was nearly as strong as Master Vrune, despite his youth.

His father had died in service to his country against a fey outbreak somewhere, and his mother was killed in a race riot when he was a child. He had been adopted by Hank Blakhamar, a builder and construction expert who was a pillar of the dwarven community here. Hank had opened his hearth and home to orphans of all the new races. Sama knew he had a dozen adoptees living around or with him right now, and at least another dozen in other places, in addition to having six kids of his own. Needless to say, he had a big house.

“A Katana, of all things.” The Japanese swords had much less mystique in this world than the former, as the martial traditions of the Seven Dragons tended to favor straight swords, and the Katana was just a modified saber that needed a new hilt design, in the end. Sama just shrugged, as the buyer had been very firm in what he wanted.

“One of those samurai swords?” Mord asked, fishing, and she handed over the commission slip before he could ask. His dark eyes devoured the technical terms for the request, visualizing the final product. The long list of terms in Denthek completely summarized the Sword’s design in everything from length and weight to curvature and coloration.

“He’s paying for a full Zvei?” Mord whistled softly, sneaking a glance over his shoulder.

“Shoo. Start on those bellows,” Sama replied. Chagrinned, Mord hurried off to start working the fires to the main forge, which would soon fill the center of the room with incandescent flame.

She noted they were refining at least nine ingots today, probably for other smiths living nearby who wanted the superior metal to work with. It looked like a long tree-saw, with adamantine teeth, was on the docket, too, and a couple of gleaming picks. There weren’t a lot of smiths around who could work in adamantine, but Master Vrune was one of them, and favored making tools over foppish commission jobs.

Sama turned back to her own Floating Forge and Anvil of Silent Thunder, set off in a corner and out of the way of the dwarves. The central forge in this room was also a Crafting Forge, and more powerful than her own... but it didn’t float around, either. The fact she had her own forging equipment and didn’t need to borrow his was a big reason why he agreed to let her smith out of his shop.

That, and her cranking out QL 26 to 33 Swords of all shapes and sizes as fast as any dwarf.

Crafting was immersive, calming, a therapeutic way to spend her time releasing violent impulses... and most importantly, every gp in crafting earned a point of Karma, so it was slow, steady progress towards her goal of Leveling.

It could make good money, too, if someone bought your stuff.

The Freemasons had set the standard for pricing magical items at approximately twice the amount of goldweight it took a Powered to make the thing, compensating the Powered for their time, investment, and the bit of their soul it took to bind the magic to an item.

Of course, that was only a guideline. There were Artificers who could produce magic items cheaper, and the dwarves certainly could do so with their Runecrafting, but that was the average price.

Anything above QL 33, and certainly anything with IV’s attached, could go for much, much more. The number of items put up for sale with V’s was non-existent... only a few rare halvyr had reached that level, and they didn’t spend time Crafting for money, to the dismay of many wealthy people. Anything they Crafted was for themselves or close associates... unless enough money was offered for them to make something specific, and they might accept.

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In any event, such things never made it to the public, and because of the time commitment in making something permanent at that level, were likely to be consumables or low-use items, anyways. Even a 1/day Teleport item was nine days of Infusing, and who wanted to spend that for someone else very often? Take your nine goldweight of profit and live high on the hog for a while...

Or, you know, turn around and invest it into your own Gear.

The limitation on all this was naturally her own Crafting skill.

All of her Karma had gone into her Rantha Levels, and she had finally managed to make Rantha/6. Her Regeneration, that awesomely powerful failsafe of being unkillable unless they used Holy Silver, was now in play. Furthermore, when enhanced with Blood and Soul, which she had auto-programmed herself to allocate to in event of injury, both her Fast Healing and Regeneration could spike to 4 points a round each... meaning she healed very, very quickly on her own.

She had also meticulously maxed out her Health; with a 32 Con, Toughness, and Soul-Reinforced Body, she had reached an extremely impressive 147 Health. This allowed her to save her Soak for real emergencies, although she had much less of it, as she was still at Melee/4. 10 per Level, Favored Class +4, 32 Con +11/level, Fort+21 for Toughness/2, and +14 for Tough Soul turning her Ki Reserve to more Soak meant 119 Soak... a huge cushion that by itself could deal with anything short of a building falling down atop her.

Her Null was already at 31, meaning she was basically immune to any Powered spellcaster on the planet without an inordinate amount of focus on Spell Penetration. It was a good feeling, and had taken her a damn long amount of time to get there. Just the thought of some creature waving its hand and bam, getting paralyzed, charmed, or just plain dead, had motivated her for years to get here.

Of course, supernatural creatures could cast above Ten, so she still had puh-lenty of work to do...

The totally unrealistic Rantha Racial Class made it all possible. Of course, getting further would require a massive Karma supply, and she had no clue how to get there. The piddly shit crimefighting stuff was basically knocking over Two’s and Three’s most of the time, the Karmic gain negligible.

That made Crafting, of all things, her only source of reliable Karma, and, true to the type of Karma it was, it could only go in to general Karma, or pay for skill upgrades to the crafting skills she was using.

Take 10. 6 Ranks, +3 for a class skill, for +9. 22 Intellect, for a bonus of +6. +2 Talent with Swords. +2 Combat Genius, Discipline in Training from Resolve; +3 Skill Focus; +2 Synergy Armorsmith; +2 Skill Affinity for Master Craftsman; +1 Skill Training for Master Craftsman; +2 Artisan ability of Artificer/Runesmith. +2 Cunning. +3 for Weaponsmith Mastery/3.

Final check, 44. Booooo-yeah, she could make Swords as good as anyone on the whole planet... although she hadn’t dared make something at 40 QL with ten Slots. Holy Mithar, the commotion that would cause...

She had gone further and Unlocked the Skill, progressing to Master, and her weekly progress was now measured in gold, not silver.

Her Floating Forge, Shaping Hammer, and Anvil of Silent Thunder all gave different +3 bonuses and doubled her crafting speed, adding up to +9 and x4 speed as they stacked. Mighty Smith meant that she could add her Strength bonus to her Crafting speed, so that was another +8 on the stack.

62 speed x 44 QL x 4 = 10,912 gp of production per week, or about 1500 gold, three goldweight, a day. Since she wasn’t going to make anything at 44 QL that wasn’t for herself, she usually lowered the target QL by 10, which increased the multiplier to x5. About 1900 gold in production per day, which wasn’t all that bad... except when you were an unlimited Karmic sink, AND you had to find someone willing to fork out that much goldweight to pay you for doing such awesome stuff.

It did mean that she could forge a QL 26 Sword with 2000 intrinsic value, i.e. +I, with nine hours of work. Like Infusing, magical Crafting only worked for eight hours a Renewal before petering out, so putting in extra time didn’t add to the magical value of the Weapon. There was still plenty of room for her to raise her Crafting Skill and Speed to make things even faster.

So, she could turn out six basic Swords +I per week. As Swords were among the harder Weapons to make, that was pretty impressive. The larger and more complex swords slowed down her Speed, as could complex materials. She knew how to work with Mithral, but hadn’t improved to Adamantine yet, which was why Tremble wasn’t a true Adamant Weapon yet. Energized Earth Tungsten was no joke to forge... and her Floating Forge couldn’t burn that hot yet, anyways.

Finding people willing to pay gold for magic Swords was a bit more involved, as there were a lot of Smiths willing to make the basic Sword, and sell them to the person to get magicked up themselves, or have a lackey do it for a little over half the cost.

Still, there were some people who wanted Weapons, wanted them customized, couldn’t make them themselves, and had the money to make it so. So, she was slowly making progress towards Gearing up, and really wishing that there was an unlimited gold spigot somewhere that wanted magic Swords.

For some odd reason, magic Guns were much more popular. People were strange...

Master Vrune focused more on magic Tools and Armor, as befitted a smith of his caliber. There were people stopping in all the time for fittings, and not just for high QL stuff. Senior Artificers who wanted to build Constructs required high craftsmanship, too, and Master Vrune was the only smith between Detroit and Seattle who could work adamantine. A lot of people from Chicago took trips to St. Paul just to meet Master Vrune and commission some work.

Still, it was mostly work for QL, not magic. QL work paid only a fraction of magical work...

This most recent commission was indeed for a full +Zvei Sword at QL 32. She had the impression he would have paid for more, but he couldn’t afford it. Two Slots + QL 32 was already 10k in gold, a colossal sum to most people, three million dollars just for a custom magic Weapon with room to grow.

But she understood the mindset. A warrior was their Weapons. Lay a +V Scimitar in front of her, and she’d just roll her eyes. She could forge one, but she wasn’t ever going to USE one. She had plans in mind for Tremble... who was still slowly and steadily eating craftcoins, since there were so few opportunities to actually use her...

Her Hammer came down, the explosion of sound confined to the burning ingot she had drawn out of her Forge, singing through the metal and letting her know the exact internal patterns and purity of it. Her slamming blows began to deform the metal with great speed as she began the folding process...