Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 150: Recognition

Ridley was standing outside the smithy when Arwin stepped out onto the street. His arms were crossed and he was tapping a finger against the corner of his lips in thought, but Arwin was far more concerned with the building before him.

The smithy was beautiful. Stone walls, plain but well built, rose in stark contrast to the old, wrecked buildings surrounding them. Ridley had installed several glass windows at the front to give passersby a way to see inside.

He’d even put in a wide wooden door with a shiny brass handle.

Okay, I think most buildings have doors. It’s a nice door, though.

“Ah. Arwin. You have good timing,” Ridley said as he approached, glancing over at him before returning his gaze to the building. “What do you think?”

“Is it done?”

“For the time being, yes. I structured it so it could grow,” Ridley said, gesturing vaguely toward the building. “In either direction, mind you. Going down is just as viable as up. I finished last night, but I wanted to see how everything looked in the morning before I declared it complete.”

Ridley pulled the door open and gestured for Arwin to look inside. He didn’t have to ask twice. Arwin stepped into a quaint waiting room. A stone counter ran along the back, in front of another door that presumably led into the workspace.

Ridley had installed metal hooks along the wall and several stone shelves to display armor with, and there was a small swinging door at the edge of the counter. Arwin mutely walked over to it and stepped behind the counter.

He pushed the door open and peered into the workspace. It was spacious, nearly as large as the front room. A large hearth had been built into the center of the back wall, a chimney running up to the ceiling above.

There was a spot for his anvil beside it, and several racks for tools along the walls. Ridley had even gotten his hands on a bellows and set it up beside the hearth. Aside from the missing tools and anvil, the only thing the forge was missing was fire.

It was plain, but it was beautiful.

Arwin swallowed. “I love it.”

Ridley beamed at him. “Damn right you do. Any requests you’ve got for changes? I took a few liberties with the designs since you didn’t get into specifics. I can’t modify the structure, but—”

“No, no. This is perfect,” Arwin said with a firm shake of his head. He reached into the bag at his side and pulled out the final 100 gold he owed Ridley, holding it out to the mason. As he sifted through his belongings, his fingers brushed against the bulging leather pouch that he’d taken from Jessen.

I’ll have to take a look at that once I’m finished here.

“You’ve done brilliantly. I like the door selection,” Arwin said as Ridley took the money.

“Nice and sturdy, just like the building.” Ridley chuckled and slipped the coins into a pouch at his own side. “I’m pleased you like it. You make sure you come back to me when it’s time for any improvements, you hear? I’m going to be pissed if you hire a different mason.”

“I think I can do that,” Arwin said with a grin. He held his hand out and Ridley gave it a firm shake. The mason pulled a brass key out of his pocket and handed it over to him.

“Here. You’ll need this, I reckon. It goes to both the front door and the workshop.”

“Thank you,” Arwin said. “You did great work. I look forward to hiring you again in the future, once I’ve gotten this place big enough to justify it.”

“I’ll be waiting. Not like there’s much in the way of work at the moment, so I’ll be rooting for you as well,” Ridley grumbled. He raised a hand in farewell, then headed out through the front door and shut it silently behind him.

Arwin turned in a slow circle, basking in the glory of the smithy. His smithy. There were no cracks in the walls or errant breezes passing through. And yet, even though it couldn’t have been more different from the run-down building Reya had brought him to, there was a familiar feel about it.

It was temping to head out and immediately start setting everything up. He could drag the anvil back with [Scourge] and then jump right into a little bit of work until Lillia had breakfast finished, but there was something else that had to be done first.

Arwin took Jessen’s bag out. He’d been so tired when he’d taken it from the man’s body that he hadn’t had a chance to open it yet. Looping a finger through the knot, Arwin pulled it apart and peered inside.

It was a coin purse with just over 200 gold. That was something of a disappointment. He hadn’t known exactly what he’d wanted, but Jessen hadn’t felt like the type to carry nothing valuable but gold.

Then again, in some way, it almost felt poetic. 200 gold had been what it cost to rebuild his smithy. Jessen had paid for everything he’d permitted and guided his guild to do.

But, as Arwin sifted through the coins, a spot of black caught his eye. It was hidden in a pocket sewn into the side of the pouch. He pulled at the pouch, working it open just enough to slide a small badge free of it.

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The badge was made of black metal and just a bit smaller than his palm. It was largely plain aside from a tarnished silver line running through it like a tear through the center of a piece of paper.

Arwin ran his hand along the badge, turning it over. There didn’t seem to be any magic within it. As far as he could tell, it served no purpose at all. Not a functional one, at least. It strongly resembled a guild badge of some sort, but there was no name or other identifying features on it.

It definitely isn’t the Iron Hounds’ guild badge either. Did Jessen take this from someone he killed? That feels unlikely. Given that it was even slightly hidden, it seems like it belonged to him.

Arwin studied the badge for a few more minutes, then slipped it back into the pocket and returned Jessen’s entire bag into his own. He headed out to his temporary smithy and grabbed the anvil with the aid of [Scourge], heaving up with a grunt and bringing it over to his actual smithy. He set the large hunk of metal down, then brushed his hands off and glanced around one more time. He’d been out for a bit and breakfast would probably be ready pretty soon.

It wasn’t like he actually needed to eat normal food — but that wasn’t going to stop him. Lillia was the one cooking after all. He took one last look around the newly completed smithy and pictured how it would look when all his materials were in it. When it was full of armor and weapons that he’d crafted and equipment of all sorts hung from the walls.

I don’t know if I’d want quite as many people in here as Lillia wants in her tavern, though. Maybe that’s fine for the normal stuff, but I’m not changing my stance on making magical items. They’ll be for the people that I judge worthy of having them and nobody else.

That said, I should really get better at making the bloody things before I start tooting my own horn about them. With the amount of help that the Mesh has been giving me all this time, it feels odd to gatekeep anything.

Luckily, I know exactly what I need to do.

Practice. That was what it always boiled down to. But, before that could happen, he had a meal waiting for him.

***

“Well?” Rodrick asked as Arwin sat down beside the others. Lillia had already finished cooking before he’d returned and had already distributed plates of steaming vegetables and some form of poultry to all of them. “Is the new smithy finished?”

“It is,” Arwin confirmed, unable and unwilling to hide his delight. “Last night. I can really get started now.”

“So it’s time to open up shop?” Anna asked.

“I figure I should get some gear before I do that,” Arwin said with a chuckle. “I need to make some equipment. That’ll be good practice regardless. I’m reworking how I forge just about everything. It wasn’t good enough.”

“Not good enough?” Olive’s eye twitched and she lowered her fork. “You make magical weapons.”

“Right,” Arwin agreed. “But I could make better magical weapons. You can swing your sword hard enough, can’t you? Why bother training anymore?”

“Point duly taken.” Olive popped the piece of chicken on the end of her fork into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “How do I get in line for some of that fancy magical gear?”

“I’ll probably focus on repairing everyone’s equipment first. I know my own armor took quite the beating in that fight. If you’ve got anything that needs to be fixed up, that’ll come first. After that, I’m going to make sure I’ve got enough plain gear to sell to the masses. We need more money. A lot more money — just not so badly that I’ll set aside more important tasks to go for it. I can always just make more gear on a case-by-case basis if we’re really hurting for coin.”

“And after that?” Anna asked.

“Then comes gear for all of us,” Arwin said with a laugh. “I’ve been thinking on what I can make you. Realistically, I could probably make something now… but I think it’s better to go for quality over quantity, especially because we don’t have Jessen breathing down our necks anymore.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Anna asked. “It makes me a bit uncomfortable asking you to do literally all the work.”

A small grin pulled across Arwin’s lips and he nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes. There is something you can do. The biggest change and challenge I’ve found is that I need specific materials for everything I make.”

“That doesn’t seem like much of a revelation,” Olive said with a frown. “If you want a sword, you need metal. What’s new?”

“The specific type of metal,” Arwin said. “And, beyond that, the bit that gives said metal its traits. Without getting into the gritty details, I need something that embodies the power you want your item to have. So, let’s say you want a sword with a trait that makes it very sharp — you’ll need to find a claw or something like that from something that had some overlap with that desired trait.”

“I see,” Olive said. “So you can’t just decide to put whatever enchantment you want onto the stuff you make?”

“No. I can control the general direction and I’m working on more specific traits right now, but that leads to what you can help with.”

“You want us to keep an eye out for any interesting bits and bobs from monsters,” Rodrick concluded.

“Precisely. We’ve got a good bit from the Wyrm, not to mention the bugs in the dungeon we did a bit ago, but more can’t hurt. If there’s a specific trait you want your equipment to have, finding a piece related to that trait will help a lot.”

“We can do that,” Anna said. She polished off the rest of the food on her plate before speaking again. “We should probably look to get ready to head out pretty soon. As Rodrick said, we’ll keep an eye out for anything especially useful.”

“That would be very helpful,” Arwin said. His gaze drifted to Reya. She’d been quieter than usual throughout their meal. He wasn’t sure if she’d noticed, but she was idly rolling the blood-red dagger over her knuckles like a toy. “Reya, is everything okay?”

She blinked and caught the dagger before it could fall, sliding it into the sheath at her side. “Just thinking.”

“Anything in particular? A new ability?” Anna asked. “And you should really be careful about thinking with that blade out. It’s going to get eyes if you do it somewhere public.”

“I’ll make sure to leave it sheathed,” Reya promised. “And… no. I didn’t get a level from that one. Did you?”

Anna, Olive, and Rodrick all nodded.

“I guess that makes sense. I didn’t do all that much until the end, and I didn’t technically even do much actual fighting. I was thinking about what happened after the fight.”

“You got a Title, didn’t you?” Olive asked. “There’s no way that dagger just bonded to you for no reason.”

I’m of the same opinion. I hope it wasn’t a detrimental Title. I don’t know if the Mesh would view getting covered head-to-toe in Wyrm blood as a good thing.

“It wasn’t a Title,” Reya said with a shake of her head. “It was a Challenge.”

Huh. That makes two of us. For something that I’ve never heard of before, it’s a bit strange that —

Arwin’s thoughts trailed off as he caught the look that flicked over Olive’s features. It wasn’t the confusion that everyone else had shown when he’d first mentioned his own Challenge.

It was recognition.

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