Dear Dairy, alcohol is strange.

“I finally did it!” I exclaim while raising my finished blade above my head, “I have finely created my magnum opus!”

Altukar claps his hands while Dur just looks at it in confusion.

“Are you not a bit young to have created your magnum opus already?” Dur asks.

“I am not actually sure what the word means. I just like saying it,” I say, a bit mollified but still excited about the sword. It was, after all, my best work so far.

“It is used to describe a crafter’s best work,” Dur explains.

“So this sword is really my magnum opus,” I say, inspecting the sharpness of the blade for the 18th time.

“I don’t think that is exactly how it works.” Dur sighs. “But the quality is astounding; I will teach you how to properly finish it, and then we can make a sheath for it.”

“Okay, so what is first?” I ask, bouncing from one foot to the other in excitement.

“Well, usually you pick a gem to go into the scabbard first, depending on what clan you are in, but in your case, it is a bit different, I guess,” Dur says.

I think about it for a bit, deciding what would be the best. “I would like an emerald in the middle and an amethyst and sapphire on either side.”

“Ooh, why that peculiar combination?”

“Well, it is the gems that I pressed on the amulet when I got here.” As if in answer, the amulet fibrates against my chest.

I pause. It just vibrates. I put my sword on the workbench and get the plate out of my shirt to examine it. The gems are glowing not brightly, but there is a small light coming from them. I examine the sides as well as the other gems to see if there are any other changes, but it looks like the lights are the only ones.

“Is there something wrong, Cestla?” Dur asks, looking at me with concern.

“No, it is just the plate started glowing all of a sudden, so I was wondering what was going on,” I say.

“Do you think it is fully charged now?” Dur asks.

“Maybe I don’t know of any way to check, so the only way to know is to activate it again and see if I disappear.”

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“Then why are you not pressing them? Don’t you want to go home?” Dur asks.

I hesitate. He is right, but “I do, but I have not solved whatever disaster is coming, and everyone here has been so kind to me. I would feel bad leaving you when I could have helped.”

A soft smile appears on Dur’s face. “You are just a kid. You should not worry about all of this too much.” Then he sighs, “But fine, I already asked the clan elders if they knew of any problems, and I have heard nothing so far, so instead of sitting here thinking of possible problems, why don’t we just finish your blade and celebrate you becoming a full smith? And if nothing goes wrong, then you can go home tomorrow after the celebration. Sounds like a good deal?”

“Wait, you think I am a full smith?” I ask, a bit surprised Dur is a good teacher, but there were still several flaws in most of my creations.

“There is still room to improve, but you are definitely better than a bigger. So I am proud to call you a smith. I just hope that you improve your craft further at the forge in your home.” Dur says, and I don’t have the heart to tell him that most people on earth don’t really have access to a forge. Who knows, when I get home, I might take it up as a hobby.

“I try my best now about finishing the blade,” I say, still excited.

“Yeah, yeah, young people are always in a hurry,” Dur complains with a smile on his face.

It is kind of a hassle to finish the blade. It is a lot more complicated than I would have guessed and uses a lot of different techniques. But in the end, I have a proper hilt, handle and scabbard, so there is not much use for complaining.

Dur and Altukar take me to a restaurant to celebrate my finished work. It is a cosy place not so far from the workshop, but according to Dur, the cords ox is very good there, whatever that is. As soon as we enter, the sound of the place hits me, and I see dwarfs sitting around happily talking.

“Ey, if it isn’t the lass, how you been?” A familiar dwarf shouts out to me.

“Gimdar! What are you doing here?” I ask in surprise.

“Elder Dur invited us to celebrate the completion of your apprenticeship. You do realize those are supposed to take longer than a week, right?” Gimdar asks.

“Elder?” I ask while looking at Dur.

“I usually serve as the elder for the sitting guilds on the clan counsel,” he explains while sitting at the table.

“So, lass, can we see your creation?” Gimdar asks when we are all seated down.

“Ah, sure.” I unsling the sword from my back and hand it to him. ”Here you go.”

He takes the sword and inspects it, turning it side to side. “This is good work; you can’t really tell that you have been smithing for less than a week.”

“Well, what can I say? I am a fast learner,” I say with a smile.

“Right, you are; on that note, we have a gift for you,” Gimdar says while going into his pack.

“A gift, why?” I ask confused

“Usually, the dwarfs in your generation would get you a gift when you finish an apprenticeship, but since you don’t have any Glinknor and I got you one instead,” Gimdar explains before giving me a box.

“Thank you so much. It means a lot,” I say as I grab the box.

Inside the box is a small hand axe made of some kind of black steel-like material. I pick up the axe, and it is a lot heavier than I was expecting. That is odd. It does have a sharp edge, so it does not need any sharpening, which is always nice.

“It's a brocsium axe,” Glinknor says, “Almost impossible to break, which also means it is hard to forge, requiring close proximity to the magma stream.”

My eyes widened “Wow, that sounds super cool, and it being unbreakable sounds useful, especially since I won’t have access to a proper grindstone for a while.”

Both of them smile. “Well, I am happy you like it. Now what do you say to a round of humbunder ale to celebrate.”

We eat and drink the rest of the day away. I think, honestly, I don’t really remember what happened after the first few drinks.