Dear Diary, I severely underestimated how difficult it would be to create a forge.
After the attack, it took Amule and me a while to convince the elders to swear an oath that they would not use weapons on the innocent, no matter what race they were. Sadly, what I soon realised was that that was the easy part. We needed to build a forge, which was difficult but not impossible. No, the difficult part was that we now had to mine for ore’s a detail I did not really consider.
Lucky for me, the tribe is not shy of lending me some manpower, and after about half a day or so, we have some good chunks of ore. I am pretty sure it is mostly copper and not iron, though. Then again, I am not sure if I can even make steel, so I guess bronze is fine for now.
“So we just poor the molten metal in here?” Aluma asks, looking at me suspiciously.
“Yeah, that is what the mould is for. Then we let it cool,” I say
“And that is it?”
“No, we still need to temper and sharpen it, but it is the basics done. Creating the mould was the hardest part,”
Aluma looks at me in suspicion. “Well, when we talked. It sounded more difficult.”
“That was because I was talking about steel, something we don’t have, so we are working with bronze instead,” I explain.
“What is the difference?”
“Colour”
“That is it?”
“No bronze is also less durable, but the colour is the obvious part.”
Aluma gives me a confused look. “I see, so what would we need to make steel weapons?”
“Iron ore, some coal, and a blast furnace” I name a few things in my head.
“And which of those things do we have?” Aluma asks, looking over the ores.
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“We have coal but that is not going to cut it.”
“I see so bronze it is then.”
“It gets the job done for now, and who knows, if you keep practising, you get better eventually.”
“I see thank you for teaching me.” She says with a smile.
“It's not much. I am still kind of learning myself, so it might be a bit wrong here and there, but I will do my best to help you continue creating weapons after I am gone.” I say with a happy smile.
“You’re still leaving?”
“Uhm, yes, that is what I need the plate for to go back home,” I say, a bit confused
“I just thought that you would stay now that you are engaged to my brother.”
I choke on the air. “I am what now?”
“You did gift Amule your sword yesterday, right?” she asks carefully. “Isn’t that a sign of engagement? It is a weapon, right?”
“So here, if I were to give a weapon to someone, that means I want to marry them?”
“Yes, a proper spear or sling takes a long time to make, so it shows one's commitment.”
“Aluma, I am about to make weapons for all your tribe fighters. Should I marry all of them as well?”
“Ooh, I did not know you had such a big appetite.”
I pause. “I did not know that is how your culture works, but I am not marrying your brother.”
“Sorry, who is marrying me?” Amule asks as he walks into the forge.
Aluma turned to him. “Brother, aren’t you going to marry the Traveller.”
Amule, for his part, just looks confused. “No, why would you think that? She is still a child, and she has no wings. I know that should not creep me out, but it does. No offence.”
“None taken”, I say I say with a sigh of relief.
“But she gave you the sword, right?” Aluma asks him.
“Yeah, but there were children in danger. There was no romance there, just us trying to stop a disaster from happening,” he explains.
“But you seemed so happy with it.”
“Of course, I am happy this thing cut straight through their armour.”
“Oh, I well, I am sorry”, she turns back to me. “I am sorry, Traveller. Can you forgive me? It was just you are so much fun to be around. I thought it would be fun for us to be sisters.”
“It is fine. It would be fun to be sisters, but I don’t want to stay here longer than necessary. I need to get home.”
“I see that is unfortunate. How long does it take for you to travel between here and your home once you get the plate back? Maybe you can come over and visit.”
“I really don’t know. The plate just puts me down somewhere at random.”
“Wait, so you don’t know where you are going and just hope you randomly get back home?”
“That was kind of the plan.”
“Why don’t you try to orientate yourself instead and go home that way?”
“Because I am pretty sure that I am on a different planet.”
“What is a planet?”
“You know everything around you, as far as the eye can see, is on this planet. If you go up into the sky and fly up really far, you can eventually reach another planet.” I look at both of them as they stare at me in incomprehension. “Something like that. Just think of it as being too far to walk.”
“I see, but the travelling must be good seeing a lot of people,” Aluma says
“You know what, now that you mention it, I think that might actually be the highlight of it all”, I say with a smile, “but we should really get back to forging if we want to get anything done today.”