Ar'Kendrithyst

In a room ten meters to a side and half that in height, Erick and Grosgrena stood beside a table laden with ingots, most of which weighed in at a single kilogram, but some of which were much smaller than that. The majority were silver or grey, but practically all of the smaller ingots were of other colors. Bright orange, mossy green, gold, white, blue. The smallest ingot was the size of one of Erick’s fingernails.

The room itself was solid stone and constructed with magical experiments in mind. A few iron blast shields, each a good two meters square and half a hand thick, rested in an iron holder so they didn’t crush the floor with their weight. They had large bolts on their sides that could slide into holes in the floor, along with foldout triangles to keep them from toppling. If Erick needed to use one or two, there they were.

One such metal plate was already set up to the side, protecting two of Grosgrena’s assistants with their paperwork and various scales. They were two twenty-somethings, one male the other female, on the barest cusp of being not fully human; they were demi of some pink flavor who were both probably the equivalent of grad students. That iron plate was a precaution for them, since they knew a bit about what Erick might be doing to pull apart Grosgrena’s metals.

Poi stood near the grad students, but not with them.

“I don’t need a metal plate.” Erick said, “I can control the heat.”

“If you’re sure, then you’re sure. I certainly don’t need one.” Grosgrena gestured to the table of ingots. “Which one do you want to start with?” She tapped a milky silver-like ingot, saying, “This one is adamantium before the magic. In this form you can treat it like normal iron.” She gestured to the rest, saying, “Iron. Steel. Rustless steel. It’s all in there. Start where you want.”

Erick looked over the smaller ingots, for something caught his eye. One of the small silver ingots was messing up his mana sense—

“Oh. That one’s Extreme Light material.” Erick said, “I can’t work with that one.”

It was probably uranium or maybe thorium. There were only four stable elements past lead and Erick hadn’t made any of those Condensing spells. Perhaps he could make the spells for Bismuth, Thorium, Protactinium, and Uranium, but he didn’t feel like experimenting in that direction. Let’s not touch the radioactive materials, shall we. Don’t want a repeat of the Atomic Ban incident.

“Dammit.” Grosgrena frowned at the tiny bit of metal, saying, “I suppose you couldn’t either, could you. Meh. Fine. Can’t do shit with that stuff besides throw it in a bomb or in the trash. Trash it is.” She waved a hand and a tiny [Cleanse] drowned the radioactive ingot. The spell took a few seconds to turn the ingot into thick air, so Grosgrena hadn’t used a normal [Cleanse], but soon enough, the radioactive metal was gone.

Erick grabbed what he suspected was a steel bar, saying, “Let’s start with this.” He moved away from the table of ingots.

Grosgrena followed, saying, “Tell me what you’re doing while you do it.”

“Sure.” Erick explained as he began to throw spells into position, “First comes [Particle Vacuum], to clear out the space of any stray particles to ensure a clean working environment. [Particle Vacuum] should come out in the Script in a year. While that spell is warming up— see the mist it expels? Those are particles inside the space. Anyway. I have Ophiel use an [Incandescent Aura]— The base spell for that one should have entered the Script back when Particle Magic became a part of the Open Script months ago.

“And now Ophiel throws a lot of mana into that spell, ramping it up to strength, as I use my lightform to toss the steel into the center where— Yup! [Condense Iron] secures the metal from falling down as I take my lightform away. Now comes the tricky part. I start layering many, many more spells across the space.” Erick took a minute to do this, while he had Ophiels help with their own spells, to cut down on the necessary time it took to erect the working due to the limitations of the Script Second. “And then we put more of these spells down in ever-tightening concentric circles.

“See the basic structure? I’m overlapping 81 different Condense spells, but most of those spells existed outside of that overlap. This arrangement pulls metals away from each other. I made the iron part the largest, and the other ones smaller, because I’m pretty sure this is mostly iron. But I might be wrong.

“And now, with the steel bar sitting in the center, and the whole thing prepared, Ophiel turns up the heat.”

Ophiel trilled in violins as his fiery aura rapidly began melting the metal bar, turning it red hot, then yellow, then into melted white metal. Soon, floating blobs of metal began separating left and right, passing out of constraints of their neighboring Condensing spells, into their own sections of spellwork. And then deeper.

Erick nodded, saying, “And... yup.” He pointed, “That one is [Condense Iron], and this metal bar looks to be mostly iron. This spellwork will last another nine minutes, so I’ll have to renew it now and again to ensure that it all stays working as it should. It only takes about seven minutes to separate the steel into its parts, though, so this should be done long before then.”

Grosgrena had watched, enchanted, but now she spoke up, “I thought Particle Magic couldn’t latch onto individual particles, but this clearly can.” Slightly unsure, and showing the barest amount of fear for the first time, she added, “At least that’s what I heard of the discipline. I could be wrong.”

“You’re not wrong. As of three months ago, Particle Magic still couldn’t affect individual atoms.” Erick said, “Either something changed, which is the far-off possibility. Or —and this is much more likely— this level of control is only possible because of high temperatures and the presence of a pure vacuum altering how the Condense spells operate. Maybe this sort of setup produces an ‘atom soup’-like effect, allowing for precision control, like how [Small Spark] is capable of affecting electrons but electrons are much, much smaller than atoms. Maybe the heat here frees up these atoms so that they move freely, like how electrons move in most metals.”

“Ah.” Grosgrena lost her fear as she stared up at the brightly burning metals. “That might explain it. Spells do weird things when you get enough of them together.”

“Aye; that could be a part of it, too. But I don’t have a real answer as to why this works now.” Erick said, “I might have informed Rozeta how I thought Particle Magic should work, but I did not create many of these spells. I got [Condense Iron] from the tier one [Condense Particle] just like everyone else.”

Grosgrena nodded, her dark eyes seeing only the glowing metal before her. “It’s quite beautiful.” And then she came back down from the beauty, saying, “Complicated as shit, though. How the shit do you know which one up there is iron and which is carbon? That’s too many damned spells.”

Erick chuckled, then said, “I remember.” He turned his gaze upon the metal particulate here and there, and then to the large ball of glowing iron, saying, “I’ve thought about trying to combine all of these spells into one so I don’t have to set this up every time, but not yet. Not until after I understand more of what’s happening here.”

“Ha! 83 spells combined into one! I suppose if anyone could do it, it’d be an archmage.”

Erick smiled.

Soon, the separation was done. The metal bits had filed out into eleven different Condensing locations. Erick had Ophiel turn off the heat, and then he grabbed the clumps of stuff with his lightform, as he simultaneously filled up the vacuum with hard light. With the space secured, Erick canceled the vacuum and slowly relaxed his light inward, preventing a catastrophic implosion. He told Grosgrena what he was doing as he did it, talking about how dangerous vacuums were to biological life and how much a poorly released vacuum could ruin everything.

And then, the dissection was over and Erick had twelve bits of metal in his light. He set them down with Grosgrena’s assistants, naming them as he did.

“Iron, the largest, of course. Then you got what I think you purposefully put into the steel; carbon, manganese, titanium, nickel, chromium. The copper might be intended? The tin, too, maybe. I don’t know. The silicon is likely unintended, and it got in there with some sand, or something. Sulfur and phosphorus probably aren’t intended? Maybe part of the smelting process? I don’t know. There’s tungsten, and you probably intended that, but I don’t know enough about metallurgy to be sure.” He added, “There was also some air trapped in the steel, but I didn’t hold onto those. Oxygen, nitrogen, stuff like that. All of those escaped the Condensing traps.”

The metals had different names on Veird, and Erick used those names when giving out his list, but inwardly, Erick went with his own names for this sort of stuff. The only metals that he didn’t do that for were for the magical metals, but he’d probably stop doing that as soon as he tore apart the metals sitting on Grosgrena’s table over there. He’d probably still call ‘antirhine’ as ‘antirhine’, though, instead of ‘lead’, or at least when other people were around.

As the assistants silently, quickly weighed the metals like their lives depended on it, or perhaps they just wanted to make a good impression, Grosgrena stared at the outcome of Erick’s work. Wide-eyed, and looking fifty years younger, her heart beat hard and happy. She got a giddy little grin. The Old Smith even sighed, like a woman cracking open the first page of a book she knew she was going to love.

Grosgrena said, “Enduring Forge needs a Particle Mage; I can tell. You wanna stay here? Learn proper metallurgy over a full ten year course? We might could fit all that learning into one year, but certainly no less than that.”

Erick hadn’t been in Enduring Forge long, but it certainly reminded him of Spur. It was a nice place, with a lot of the same type of transient populations, and a lot of the same types of citizenry. A lot more humans, though, but there were certainly all the other types, too. Dragonkin, incani, demi, even shifters and harpies. Goblins instead of orcols, though. Erick still hadn’t seen another orcol in town aside from Teressa. Enduring Forge even seemed to have a pixie population.

No wrought, though.

And here Grosgrena was, giving him a genuine offer to emigrate. Her offer wasn’t made out of a desire for physical power, either, but for the learning and sharing of knowledge. And yet…

Erick said, “Sorry. I’m not moving here. Maybe I’ll give you guys one end of the Gate Network once I figure that out, though I might need your help to make the Gates themselves.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Grosgrena asked her assistants, “What’s the ratios!”

“Shit steel, ma’am,” said the first assistant, the man. “Impurities are too high.”

“That’s correct. That is shit steel.” In what was likely a teaching moment for the assistants, Grosgrena asked the woman weigher, “Why is it shit steel? What’s in there that shouldn’t be?”

“Copper, titanium, tin, silicon, sulfur, phosphorus, tungsten.” The woman added, “Ma’am!”

“Yup. That’s right. There’s space for titanium in proper steel, though not in the best quality steel.” Grosgrena turned back to Erick. “Let’s pull apart the adamantium.”

Erick huffed a small laugh. “Already? Okay.”

“Yeah yeah.” Grosgrena said, “You proved your system works and I want to see what your magic has to say about our Class-defining metal. Rip that shit apart!”

Erick did so.

The spell took a good while to complete, and when it was over, Erick had a few piles of metal for his troubles. He was rather surprised at the results.

One bar of pre-tempered adamantium came out as 50% platinum, 15% gold, 15% osmium, 10% iridium, 5% nickel, and what had to be a purposeful inclusion of silicon at 4%. The remaining one percent of the metal bar’s weight simply vanished; it had to have been some trace gaseous elements, like nitrogen or oxygen.

Erick said, “So that’s a lot of platinum in your adamantium—” And then he realized something more. He glanced through the eyes of an Ophiel on the roof, looking at the massive chains that held Enduring Forge in the center of its cavern. Beyond those chains, at the cavern wall, were similarly sized ‘staples’ that kept the cavern from shifting. Erick came back, saying, “Oh, wow. That’s a lot of platinum out there. A lot of gold, too.”

Grosgrena’s assistants were silent and worried at Erick’s reaction. But they said nothing.

Grosgrena smiled wide, as she said, “Yup. All of it’s adamantium now, though, which is a might lot better than plain old gold and platinum.”

“Right. Yeah…” Erick had another thought, and decided to voice it, saying, “I wondered why no one used platinum here for currency. Or even in jewelry or whatnot. It’s even more precious here than it was back home, isn’t it? That’s because it’s such a useful magical metal?”

“Oh yes.” Grosgrena spoke without reservation, “Platinum is more than useful, it’s practically essential. Platinum is part of practically every high-grade enchantment, for it can take and multiply every element you imbue into it, becoming a different magical metal in the process. Celesteel, hellite, and starsteel are the three most useful options, but practically any other element can be infused into platinum. Forcesteel is a big one, too, but that’s like making a mop out of silk; you can do it, but for Force magic runes, sticking the runes in rustless steel is good enough. Watersteel. Airsteel. All of them are possible, but all of them are a waste of platinum. Unless you’re enchanting some tier 9 spellwork, of course.”

While all of that was rather interesting, Erick focused on one thing, “Why have ‘steel’ in the name of those when there’s no steel involved, at all?”

“I bet it’s some obfuscation handed down from Oceanside eleven hundred years ago, or some shit like that, and the angels just went along with it. Demons didn’t, though; they went with hell-‘ite’ instead of ‘steel’. But that’s a guess and it don’t matter none to me where the names came from.” Grosgrena shrugged. “I can dig up a historian if you want to know more about that.”

“Maybe some other time. But maybe you know about this one: What about shadowsteel and lightsteel? I’ve never heard of those, but now I’m wondering.”

Grosgrena smiled. “Now I do know about those, and you do too. Adamantite—”

Which was the name Grosgrena gave to osmium, in its base form; had to be.

“—is thrice over shadowsteel and lightsteel and illusionsteel.” She continued, “No steel in any of them, though, and no platinum either. It’s complicated. Stonesteel is actually better known as dauntless jade, but that’s not steel neither; it’s crystal stone. Adding to that confusion, some of the elemental-imbued ‘steel’s actually are a type of steel. Bloodsteel is actually steel.”

Erick paused in thought. “… But adamantium is clearly dark. I haven’t seen a single instance of it being lightsteel at all? And this adamantite—” Osmium. “—isn’t bright white, or dark, or shadowy at all? It’s plain silverish?”

Grosgrena nodded, knowingly. “That’s a complicated story, but it basically melts down to: Melemizargo did that. Platinum used to be able to become shadowsteel and brightsteel and illusionsteel. And then Melemizargo ripped those three away from the rest, fucking with them all and creating adamantite in the process…” She paused, as if deciding how far to go with the story, then she decided that was far enough. “Some of the oldest pieces of untouched adamantium are purest white, though that’s also only what the wrought have told us. Don’t have first hand knowledge of any of that, and it’s all ancient history, anyway.” Grosgrena said, “Enduring Forge has always been black, though. Most people are put off by the black, but it grows on you.”

Erick had a small epiphany. He said, “Practically no one else has this knowledge you just laid out there, or if they do, then it’s not in their published books.” He added, “You’re some of the best enchanters in the world, aren’t you.”

“We’d like to think so.” Grosgrena said, “But we’re only in the top 5 percent, overall. The elites of Oceanside still got everyone beat in generalized study, but not everyone can do what we do when it comes to runework and metals. In that, we’re top half percent, easy. Not including the wrought, of course.”

Erick went, “Huh.”

He was gonna need to learn runework, wasn’t he. Well! Maybe he’d have better luck with this sort of enchanting than with normal enchanting. Casting spells into an item in order to give physicality to a magic seemed a lot nicer than imbuing spellwork into an item that could then only be used a set number of times, like how most of the world enchanted. Seemed nicer than how the Shades enchanted too, by mutilating souls and shoving them into items in order to have those souls cast the assigned magic. Nicer than bloodwork formations, too, like how Xue and Ari enchanted.

… There was probably a lot of relations between bloodwork formations and runework. Eh. Oh well. Missed connections, and all that.

Anyway.

Enduring Forge’s approach to runework seemed rather compatible with Erick’s Undertow line of spells. Pretty darn perfectly compatible, actually. Instead of having [Flying Sword] runes in a sword, and requiring the user to have that spell themselves, Erick could imbue an Undertow effect alongside the [Flying Sword] spell and then anyone could use the flying sword just by, for example, sticking their finger in a slot in the weapon where the [Undertow Drain] was exposed to the outside.

There was probably no way to make ambient mana turn into magic, though.

Erick asked to be sure, “Have you all figured out how to make ambient mana become magic? Any specific funneling systems, or perhaps through a manacycler?”

With a strong voice, Grosgrena said, “Can’t be done, far as I know. Best we can do is rune up adamantium for the end-user to extend and empower their own spellwork. The user still has to have the spellwork, though; we haven’t ever found a way around that.”

Maybe they just haven't yet, if Erick’s ideas about Undertow and adamantium turned out to be valid.

“You’re using the illusionsteel part of adamantium to do all of this, aren’t you?” Erick said, “To smudge reality into subjective Reality.”

“Hmm. Somewhat correct. You can put runes on a rock face, if you want. They won’t last long, but it can be done.” Grosgrena said, “Adamantium’s various shadow-illusion-light aspects do allow the metal an unrivaled ability to do what we tell it to do, and with great strength.” She gestured back to the table of ingots, her eyes full of interest. “Let’s continue?”

“Absolutely.” Erick asked, “Got a request for the next one?”

Grosgrena quickly pointed to the bar of pale white metal, about the size of three of Erick’s fingers. To Erick’s mana sense the metal glowed with a pale gold shimmer, but otherwise, it was completely boring to look at. She said, “I got a bet riding on this one. I think it’s a single source metal, but a friend of mine thinks its an alloy.”

“What is it?” Erick asked, stepping to Grosgrena’s side at the table.

“Holyite.” Grosgrena said, “It’s impossible to find as a vein, but you can refine it from certain types of rocks and crystals. Takes a damned lot of steps to do, but the end result takes to divine magic, if you can get it that refined.” She nodded at the Crystal Star on Erick’s chest, saying, “Your Silver Star was likely made out of holyite— before Koyabez changed it, of course. All real Silver Stars are. Almost all Holy-aligned items with any actual godly power behind them are made out of holyite before the gods are asked to anoint them, but even without a god behind it, holyite is still partially divine.” She added, “Any metal can be made into holyite, though, if a god wishes it so.”

“Ahhh.” Erick put a hand on the artifact pinned to his chest as he stared down at the silvery-white ingot. His Star had been about a hundredth of the mass of the ingot when he first got it. Erick only had his mana sense and his original Silver Star both at the same time, for a little bit of time, but he was pretty sure that his original Silver Star had a tiny golden glow. This block of holyite was ten times as bright as his original Silver Star. But compared to the current Crystal Star, which glowed with a radiant gold light when focused upon by a good mana sense, this block of holyite was barely a flickering candle. Erick asked, “This stuff is unaligned?”

“Yup; not dedicated to any gods.” Grosgrena said, “And I want to know what it actually is. Is it an alloy? Or is it an individual particle? I want to know.”

Erick picked up the small ingot, saying, “Time to find out.”

Five minutes later, they had their answer.

“It’s aluminum!” Erick said.

Grosgrena held the sphere in her hands, and stared.

Erick digressed, “And the barest bit of copper and manganese. Mostly aluminum, though.”

Grosgrena’s eyes were wide. She barely paid any attention at all to the two other drops of metal that had come out of the refining process. The aluminum sphere was perfectly shiny, reflecting the world like a mirror. But as moments passed and the sphere was exposed to the air outside of the vacuum, oxidation began on that surface, dulling the sphere. With enough time, Erick was sure that the aluminum would return to its previous silver-white look. It already looked to be regaining its small ‘divine fire’ glow.

While Erick had been pulling apart the metal with high heat, the flickers of Holy surrounding it had faded, and Grosgrena had panicked a bit, but now those nascent flickers of gold began to return to the manasphere, and Grosgrena had relaxed. The glow seemed to have returned even stronger, too, but the sphere was still barely Holy; no gods had descended to actually anoint the metal, as far as Erick could tell.

Grosgrena had yet to speak. She hadn’t even let the aluminum out of her grasp, to let her assistants weigh it.

Erick spoke again, “Looks like purity makes it more holy, I guess?”

He almost said that he knew a few ways to extract aluminum from various sources, but he decided to keep those to himself, for now. Grosgrena was obviously having a moment.

And then the moment was over.

Grosgrena sniffed, blinked, and handed the sphere off to her assistants to let them weigh it. She wiped away a stray tear as she turned and looked up at Erick, saying, “Which number is that? ‘Atomic number’ was it?”

“13.”

“It’s thirteen! Ha! Fuck. I coulda—” Grosgrena asked, “What’s iron’s number?”

“26.”

She nodded, then, tentatively, she asked, “Platinum?”

“78.”

Grosgrena’s face fell. “Ach. Shit.” She scowled. “What’s osmium?”

She asked after adamantite, but Erick was already mentally substituting that one, and he would likely continue to do so going forward. The word ‘adamantium’ had come from his daughter, anyway, when she told him it was the ‘toughest metal in the world, so it must be adamantium!’.

Erick said, “Osmium is 76.”

“Ah! Damn it all to shit.” Grosgrena huffed, then she let her worries go, saying, “The most anyone around here has gotten up to is tin, at 50, but they skipped around a lot. No one has been able to get silver or gold, but everyone who’s truly tried has gotten iron at 26, then they skipped 27, but continued on to nickel, copper, and zinc, all in a row at 28, 29, and 30. One or two people have managed to get cobalt at 27, but most don’t even try because failing seems to have compounding effects; nosebleeds first, then eventually face and lung hemorrhages.” She said, “We’ll be able to change up a few things thanks to Particle Magic, but we still need to figure all of that stuff out.” She gestured to the table. “Continue?”

“Yes.”

- - - -

Deep Sky Silver, a lustrous, lightly blue mirror-like silver metal, turned out to be 99.9% silver, but Erick’s spellwork killed the magic inside that metal. That magic had been what turned it into deep sky silver, instead of just normal silver.

As the sphere of silver came out of the heat, it tarnished almost instantly with a sheen of dark rainbows.

Grosgrena said, “Yup. That’s gonna happen a lot. You ruined the magic, but that’s fine. We can put it back in with enough effort. Let’s continue.”

- - - -

Hellite, Celesteel, and Starsteel were each beautiful in their own way. Hellite was ruby pink and warm to the touch. Celesteel had an iridescent sheen to its white, cool surface. Starsteel was a sky full of stars trapped in ingot form.

All of them came out of the furnace as plain platinum, now tarnished and missing less than 1% of their weights, for each had some ‘impurities’ removed. Hellite had a drop of extra copper. Celesteel had a drop of extra titanium. Starsteel had a drop of extra iron.

And with that sort of evidence before him, Erick couldn’t call them ‘impurities’.

Grosgrena said, “Yup. They’re in the exact right measurements, too. It’s part of the imbuing process. We’ll see all of that later.”

- - - -

Bloodsteel was iron, with traces of all the particles normally found in blood. Carbon, mainly. But also sodium, potassium, zinc, calcium, manganese, cobalt, copper, magnesium. Even molybdenum.

Grosgrena said, “Yup. Great for blood magic items. Not much use outside of that. All those impurities make it brittle until you craft it into a Healing Magic item, then those impurities stabilize the intent of the rod of [Greater Treat Wounds], for example, creating something worth twenty times its weight in gold.” She added, “Conservative estimate, obviously.”

- - - -

Rustless steel was stainless steel, but by a different name. It was mostly iron, but also 22% chromium, 4% molybdenum, and 8% nickel, along with another 1% trace metals. Barely any carbon at all, though.

“Yup,” Grosgrena said, “That’s right, too. A lot less carbon in rustless steel. A lot more of a bunch of other shit.”

- - - -

Before Erick knew it, several hours had passed. The sun had set hours ago, and the rent in the roof of the Cavern of Enduring Forge showed stars and a deep night above. Erick had pulled apart a full 43 ingots of metals both magical and not, learning a lot in the process, and coming to a conclusion which he shared with Grosgrena.

“I think imbuing a metal with magic adds a tiny fraction of weight, but not much.” Erick said, “Maybe not anything at all, really? All the missing weights could easily be gasses that escaped the set up.”

Grosgrena said, “We’ve done tests on this stuff. Magic weighs down metals, though it’s only about a gram or two per kilogram of metal. Those tests involve antirhine, though, and we don’t keep that shit around anything that we care about.”

“Oh. Well. Good to know someone has already done the tests.”

Grosgrena nodded. “Gravitysteel is pretty damned hard to weigh correctly, but even that stuff is only about a gram of magic to a kilogram of metal.”

“Huh.”

Grosgrena moved right along, asking, “You want me to set you up with someone else to talk about something, this night? I’m beat, but there’s always someone awake; we don’t keep the same day-night hours that surface dwellers do, so don’t go thinking that you’re keeping someone awake.” She added, “The Forge at night is the best time to learn the practical side of this stuff because barely anyone is in there right now. Want to meet a working Smith?”

Erick grinned, happy to know that the Old Smith even cared about the small stuff, like sleeping schedules—

Poi laughed. And then he cut his laugh short with a small cough, making both the first and second sounds he had made all afternoon.

Erick instantly said to Grosgrena, “I’ll show up tomorrow when I show up, if that’s alright with you. It’s time to check on my people and do something else for a while.”

“Sure enough.” Grosgrena waved, saying, “The way out is the way you came in; don’t try [Teleport]ing or lightstepping through the shield. They got instructions to let you in and out of the main gate whenever you wish. The Smithy is open to you, but don’t poke around anywhere besides the Campus.” She shrugged. “Or do. I’m sure you’ll end up swamped with people wanting to talk to you, though.”

“Then I’ll take my leave. See you tomorrow.”

Grosgrena nodded.

Erick went to Poi, near the door, and glanced to the table of metals on his way out. Grosgrena’s assistants had carefully labeled everything with weights and identifications. It had only been the work of an afternoon, but it would send ripples throughout the entire Smithing community, for sure. The two of them left the room, and kept going.

Back in the room, Grosgrena went to the table and stared down at the work, her eyes carefully moving from orb to orb.

For a little while, as Erick walked down the hallway to exit the building, he watched through the mana as the Old Smith’s stare firmly locked on the sphere of holyite. The aluminum was inert to the eyes, but to Erick’s mana senses, it started to flicker with the smallest bits of proper divine fire, like a wreath of golden flames, or someone suddenly upping the burner on a gas stove to full. And then that glow faded. Back to ephemeral. Like a bonfire that couldn’t decide if it wanted to light, or not. While it was fully powered, though, it had taken on a mirror finish. Now, it was back to cloudy silver white.

Erick asked Poi, ‘What god do you think wants the holyite?’

‘I have no idea.’ Poi sent, ‘Maybe don’t go releasing the knowledge of easy aluminum to everyone.’

Erick smirked, sending, ‘Why Poi! You must have read my mind! I was just thinking the same thing.’

Poi leveled a glare at Erick.

Erick changed the topic. ‘What do you want for dinner?’

- - - -

Laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Erick had a few thoughts, mostly brought on by what he had seen with the aluminum. Pure aluminum normally oxidized and formed a hard layer which would prevent further oxidation. This is what Erick had seen with the aluminum (holyite) sphere. But then some divine empowerment happened and the white coating went away, leaving behind a mirror finish. Apparently, under a divine touch, aluminum turned shiny and incorruptible, and looked exactly how Erick’s Silver Star had looked before Koyabez changed it into the Crystal Star.

Erick couldn’t replicate the divine empowerment turning metals shiny…

Or maybe he could? An [Undertow anti-Oxidation] enchantment seemed possible. He could even stuff that onto a shield, or armor, or whatever, as long as he figured out the proper runework for such a spell.

Eminently doable, actually.

But a physical solution to oxidation might be better.

If steel was decent enough for most enchants, but the problem with steel was oxidation destroying long term viability, then perhaps Erick could fix that with galvanization. Galvanizing steel runework seemed cheaper than using rustless steel as the base material, and it was certainly cheaper than using any of the platinum group metals as anchors for enchantments.

… But then again, all galvanization did was hide the steel under zinc. Erick would need to ensure a good bond between the zinc and the steel to prevent flaking and destruction, but even if Erick overcame that hurdle, damage to that zinc would destroy the protective coating, and eventually lead to failure. Weapons and armor certainly suffered damage rather regularly.

It was probably better to make an [Undertow anti-Oxidation] runework spell, or something to that effect; something that Erick could attach to any bit of metalwork—

Ah.

[Mend] was already right there, wasn’t it?

… But [Mend] could only do so much, though, since even [Mend] couldn’t fix gradual permanent shifts in an item’s history. Oxidation was one such example of a gradual, permanent shift.

Well. These were all good theories and questions for long-term enchantment viability, weren’t they? If Grosgrena didn’t know the answers to these few questions, then someone over at the Smithy probably would. He would ask her tomorrow.

Eventually Erick’s thoughts wound down, and sleep claimed him. He had been up for almost 48 hours at that point, so he slept rather well.

In the morning, he awoke to Nirzir cooking a nice breakfast. While they ate, he had a nice little conversation with everyone about metals and magic and certain ideas about [Gate] and runework. Erick mostly just talked, while Poi and Teressa ate in relative silence and Jane and Nirzir offered small comments, but they didn’t know much about metalwork, either.

Before he left for the Smithy, he checked in on the grass travelers. Everyone was fine; nothing was on fire. Linxel was fine and Clan Pale Cow was still entertaining guests. After those checkups, Erick swung Ophiel over to the mountain where he Blessed people, and Blessed the single person waiting under the [Undertow Star], by the platform.

Not thirty meters from the platform and still very much under the Star’s influence, there rose a new church to Koyabez. It was small; only about three stories tall. But it was sturdy. Erick checked in with the priests on staff and talked to them for a bit, and then he enabled a few more priests to work under the Star without being subject to its [Luminosity] or Drain.

And then it was time to get back to the Smithy.

- - - -

“… My instinct is to tell you that doesn’t work.” Grosgrena said, “But you might prove me wrong and I don’t need that in my life. So what I will tell you... Is that this ‘galvanization’ process with molten zinc is a novel idea— And you want to use even more chemicals between each step to ensure a good bond? Repeat that all for me, again?”

Erick summarized, “Acid to bare the metal, then a coating of flux to ensure it stays bare, and then a dip in molten zinc which will burn away the flux and ensure a good bond between the zinc and the steel. Zinc will turn white as it oxidizes, but then the oxidation will stop.” Erick said, “There’s more to galvanization than that, but that’s the basic setup. Magic could take the place of many of those steps. [Particle Vacuum], for instance, could ensure a great bond between two cleaned metals, or at least to ensure that the metals stayed clean between the cleaning phases.”

Grosgrena listened, then she nodded, and said, “There’s at least two— Three problems I see right off the pour. Minor issue: you’re not preventing corrosion with any of these steps. The corrosion of the zinc will harm the runework. Any harm to the runework is a problem. Now a little bit of harm is fine, and a little bit of protective wax or oil is also fine, but you’re talking about coating up runes with other metals, and that’s a big shift. Another small concern: you’re just covering up the work you’ve done in the hopes that it won’t break down later and ruin the piece. But the main concern is this:

“We might not stuff core dust or other shit into metals when we carve them up, but we are carving into the very ‘soul’ of the metal when we make a rune. I use the term ‘soul’ loosely, here. Others call it ‘the history of the item’. That difference of style don’t matter much. What does matter is that the direct act of carving into a rune is what makes a rune work. A Master Runesmith can carve the simple Ancient Script words for [Ward] and Light into a block of steel and a [Mend] won’t restore the item to a block; it will always restore the item to its carved self. Furthermore, anyone who cast anything near-enough to a wardlight on the block will be able to use it to anchor their wardlight with uncommon power and duration.

“But messing with that carving —in any way— will fuck up the intent that is the runework.” Grosgrena said, “This is why we use incorruptible metals, and why adamantium is the best metal. Though you can still get away with working on steel if you don’t care about longevity. You can get away with a lot if you don’t care about longevity. But we care about that sort of thing.”

Erick had a deep think, then asked, “You mentioned runes on rocks, so what’s going on there? What sort of rocks? Plain granite, or obsidian, or other stone that doesn’t react with anything?”

“Dauntless jade is great for stationary [Ward]s and other stuff like that. Some crystals work well for [Scry]ing and [Reflection]-type spells. You can’t use something like granite, though; it has to be a single type of rock, as unbroken as you can get it, though there are ways to get past that limitation. Couldn’t make flexible armor without being able to get by those limitations, now could we?” Grosgrena said, “But aside from the specific uses of certain rocks in certain ways, and chaining enchantments, metals reign supreme for all uses. You can make a better [Ward] anchor out of adamantium than you could out of a mountain of quartz. You can make a better [Scrying Mirror] out of silver than you can out of glass or crystal. Metals simply have a better hold on themselves than most rocks, and therefore, you can carve away that solidity into useful shapes for magic to hold onto.” Grosgrena said, “Now: That’s the standard speech. But what I believe is the true answer is that the wrought are metals and the Script is anchored to Veird based on the magical anchors provided by the wrought, which are metal. So that’s why we use metals in enchants. This is also possibly why certain metals are better for certain things, and why adamantium is both the king of metals, and the royal caste of wrought.”

“… Oh. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.” He asked, “So are wrought capable of magic beyond the Script?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, adamantium wrought. Does that actually do anything for them? Does being made of metal do anything for any of them, spell-wise?”

“Oh!” Grosgrena said, “Duration and power of spellcraft, but that’s a commonality shared across all wrought. Being literally made of metal does wonders for durability, too.” She waved a hand. “While different types of metal predisposes those types of wrought to various magics, the average wrought is no better or worse at magic than any fleshy sort of person. The only reason most wrought are better at magic than any fleshy-type of person is that wrought are immortal; they have the time to spare making a bad spell or a hundred. Save for a few diseases that they gotta watch out for, they’re going to outlive us all; even the dragons.” Grosgrena stood up from her desk and moved right along, “So where do you want to start today? Practical, or theoretical? Those options come in magical or non-magical flavors, too.”

Erick stood from his seat, saying, “Practical. I want to make metal parts that won’t break due to mechanical stresses. I also want to know how to make better tools for myself, and to know if there are any tools I could be using, but don’t know about.”

Grosgrena said, “Then we’re off to Hammerhall.”

- - - -

The Old Smith walked with Erick through the hallways of Hammerhall, introducing him to various people he would be working with if he so chose. There was Mordog, who had as much muscle as an orcol, but on a human-sized frame. He was the lead weaponsmith of Enduring Forge, and he could turn even the worst bit of steel into a weapon capable of cutting the shell of a dragonturtle. Then there was Idalial, a woman with half as much muscle as Mordog, and yet with twice as much muscle as any other human-sized woman Erick had ever seen. She was the lead armorsmith, and she was currently in an adamantium pour, with five different co-Smiths, so Erick didn’t get to talk to her save for a simple ‘Hello’. He did get to watch as molten black adamantium flowed into the mold for a shoulder piece, though, and that was rather interesting from a mana sense perspective. As the molten black metal cooled, it pulled nearby mana into it, but only for the briefest moments.

And then Idalial ripped the black, still-hot metal out of its mold with her bare hands and got to work inscribing runes into the shoulder piece, working as fast as she could.

Erick moved on from there when it became clear that he could watch this process many times over, if he wished.

His actual trainer for the day was a human male watchmaker by the name of Tharagi. He was rather thin, unlike most of the Smiths Erick had seen, possibly because he wasn’t a Smith; his Class was Adamantium Mage. The man’s workshop doubled as his classroom, where he made precision instruments sized from watches to watchtowers, for some of the most powerful people the world over.

Tharagi readily shook Erick’s hand, saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Archmage Flatt. I did some work last year for Spur’s watchtower and I got to see your silver rains for myself. It was an absolutely wondrous sight!”

Erick smiled a bit as he let go of the man’s hand, saying, “It’s a nice watchtower. What did you do there?”

“Replaced some gearing and worked on the timing.” Tharagi said, “Your mayor Silverite replaced the original watchtower with one from us three hundred years ago, and we got contracts to repair it whenever it's needed.” He stepped back, saying, “So I understand you want to learn how to harden gears and all that scrap? How to make metal do actual work, instead of just chop off heads?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Erick said, grinning. “But yeah; that’s it exactly.”

“Then you came to the right place!”

Grosgrena excused herself, saying, “I’ll see you boys later. If you need to find me, Archmage, ask around. I’m always somewhere around here.”

“Thank you, Grosgrena,” Erick said.

Old Smith waved behind her as she walked away.

And then it was just Erick and Tharagi... And Poi, who kept to the side of the room.

Tharagi said, “I might have some students show up later but they can content themselves with watching from the sides of the room, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s fine. So this is the thing I want to make work properly.” Erick held out a hand and cast a lightward of the torque-sensing differential he had made for the grass travelers. “The gears I made broke due to normal stress and my heat treatments didn’t seem to temper or harden the gears in any significant way.”

Tharagi studied the lightward for several moments, then he asked, “Do you know about the grain structure of metal?”

“Yes. I know about as much as you can read in a book, but I have no actual experience.”

“Ah! Then feel free to interrupt if you have questions— Which you would be allowed to do anyway— Uh.” Tharagi was nervous and hiding it, but with his small hiccup, his mask fell, his words leaving him high and dry. As sweat broke out across his body, Tharagi repeated, “Uh.”

In a calm tone, Erick said, “Please be at ease. I’ll ask questions when I have them, and don’t be afraid to correct me if I have a wrong idea or ten.”

Tharagi gave a nervous chuckle, then said, “Uh. Sure! Yes.”

Erick nodded.

Tharagi began slowly, “Creating metal parts that stand up to high-stress environments is not the same as creating a sword or armor. For gears and sprockets and chains, the primary metal we use is rustless steel, and its abilities and nuances are rather different when compared to normal steel. In addition, we use heat and cold applications in order to…”

Eventually, Tharagi’s nervousness left him and he began to speak with enthusiasm and deep knowledge, and with the skill of a teacher who had been teaching for years. Erick liked the man’s voice, and he liked what he taught, even more, but the man required calm words now and again to ensure that he remained unafraid.

It wasn’t long till Erick made a pair of gears of his own, but he didn’t shape them with [Metalshape], since that ruined the crystalline structure of the metal. Instead, he poured metal into molds, and let it cool naturally, until it was time to quench them in water and then throw them in the freezer. Cold treatment was a new idea to Erick, and apparently it helped stabilize the metal grain of smaller, precision parts. Tharagi swore by cold treatment.

“For the mechanism by which water becomes ice mirrors that which happens to metals when they’re brought to a sufficiently low temperature. And for some metals, especially the non-magnetic versions of rustless steel, they aren’t even capable of heat treatments to harden them; only cold treatments work.”

Erick almost argued that wasn’t how phase changes worked, and how heat treatments should work on all metal, but Tharagi was vastly more knowledgeable about all of this stuff, so Erick went with the flow. And then, after Erick’s second attempt at cold treatment, using a carefully shaped [Frozen Mist Aura], the gears were more solid than before. Erick had to actually work his lightform to break a properly cold-treated gear.

Erick was temporarily speechless, while Tharagi was all smiles to see Erick’s face.

Tharagi had also been quite impressed with [Incandescent Aura] and [Frozen Mist Aura]; both of which worked well for temperature treatments when they were used at sufficiently low power and high skill.

Soon enough, Erick shoved the gears he made onto a metal frame and stress-tested them against each other with his lightform. The frame broke before the gears, eliciting a laugh out of Erick. It was the first time the gears didn’t break before the frame.

“Thank you, Tharagi,” Erick said.

Tharagi smiled softly. “We’ve got lots more to cover, if you’re willing.”

“Of course!”

The conversation, experimentation, and creation, moved on to other gear designs, and of the nuances (and differences of) cold forging, hot forging, cold treatment, tempering, annealing, forging versus casting, and a bunch of other topics Erick had only ever read about in books, or half-remembered from his life back on Earth.

Tharagi knew it all, and in much better depth than Erick.

Eventually, the first brave student entered the room, and took their place at the edge, to watch. That broke the dam, and three more students who had been stuck on the other side of the door, unsure if they wanted to enter, followed the first one in. All four of those students stood to the side of the room to watch as their teacher and the visiting archmage spoke of stuff they had likely gone over long before now.

Erick wasn’t too embarrassed by his lack of knowledge, but he knew exactly how much privileged treatment he was getting. Very few other people could walk into Enduring Forge and get lessons like this, just because they asked for them. Anyone else doing this would probably be laughed out for not knowing the differences between cold forging and hot forging.

Eventually, as had happened with many of Erick’s previous teachers, Erick reached a serviceable level of skill that garnered a familiar comment.

Tharagi stepped back from the functioning differential, his eyes lifting from the myriad of gears and their solid structure, laughing a bit as he said, “That’s graduate-level work, right there. I’ve never seen anyone increase in skill so fast! And those spells —[Incandescent] and [Frozen Mist]— they’re pretty useful, and they don’t ruin the metal like normal Fire spells do! I think I know my next point investment! Ha!”

“Don’t buy them; Remake them.” Erick said, “Aura control for the excitement of particles and aura control for the decrease of excitement of particles, respectively. Easy.” He added, “If you have aura control, that is.”

Tharagi stood straighter. “Then I’ll have to try that.”

One of the girls to the side of the room mouthed at a fellow student, ‘Remake them?’

The fellow student shrugged.

Erick almost clarified his words for those students, but he decided not to. Instead, he said to Tharagi, “Thank you for your help. But if this thing I threw together is actual graduate work, then this is good enough for me, for now. I have many things to learn and little time to spare, so I will take my leave here. Thank you, again.”

Tharagi stood ramrod straight as he proudly said, “Thank you for blessing my classroom with your presence. Thank you for killing Ar’Kendrithyst, and tempering the Dark God.” He said, “There hasn’t been a major attack since Last Shadow’s Feast and— And there usually is. The lower platform almost always is threatened by a monster surge but this time it wasn’t. I don’t know what you did, but you’ve saved a lot of lives. I’m not sure you understand how many people you’ve touched in the Underworld, but… Thank you. If you ever need help with anything else, I am here, willing, and able.” He bowed, deeply.

His students bowed with him.

It was a bit too much for Erick, so he left it at that.

When Erick got rather far down the hallway, well away from Tharagi’s room, the man collapsed against a chair, barely supporting himself as he sighed in relief, a few brief tears escaping from his eyes. He got over that feeling fast as he waved off the students who rushed to him, saying that he was fine. And then he went right to Erick’s differential to manhandle it in ways that he would not when Erick was around.

It didn’t break under Tharagi’s stresses, either. The man started mumbling about the elegance and the strength of the piece, and how he couldn’t believe the growth displayed right in front of him. Tharagi didn’t fully believe the story of Last Shadow’s Feast until that moment when he couldn’t break Erick’s differential, but now… Now he believed.

- - - -

Erick found Grosgrena at the entrance to Hammerhall, for she was waiting for him to show. It was not hard to notice that Erick had minders here and there, in the form of the normal guards that were stationed on the walls of the Smithy, and by the entrances and the ends of every major hallway. They all reported to a central source, for sure.

For all the homey-feeling of this place, it was a high security area.

But none of that bothered Erick.

“Ready for something else?” the Old Smith asked.

“You have good teachers, Grosgrena.” Erick asked, “Know of someone to teach me the basics of runecarving?”

“I sure do.” Grosgrena said, “Darabella is one of the best Rune Smiths to come out of the Smithy in ten years. I let her know yesterday that you’d be asking after her sometime soon, so she’s all in a tizzy with worry and excitement. If you can stand her eccentricities, then you’ll learn a lot.” She added, “But it will be difficult.”

Erick chuckled. “Sounds fine to me.”

“If she doesn’t work out, then we got others.”

- - - -

In a different part of the practical half of the Smithy sat a lone, square mage tower three stories in height and about 20 meters to a side. The building itself was not too notable, except that it had no windows. The only notable part of it was a bunch of machinery that came out of the top floor and connected to the ground, like a frozen waterfall of gears and axles. It was covered in stone to hide all of that intricacy, of course, so it appeared more like a bulge in the building than what it truly was. When that machinery hit the ground, it extended out to the visually impressive part of the building: the curtain wall. The wall was plain stone, about a meter tall, but it was absolutely laced with gears and machinery, in order to connect the building to a series of seven turrets placed equally around the building, atop the wall. The turrets were five meters tall, with each holding its own sphere of adamantium a half-meter across. Each sphere was absolutely laced with inscriptions of all kinds. [Cleanse] featured prominently among them, but also [Telekinesis] and [Ward], though if Erick’s reading was correct, there were also inscriptions for every single basic tier spell and skill.

Those orbs sat upon the machinery, which was connected to the building, which, as far as Erick was able to tell…

He guessed, “The machines rotate the spheres, somehow, for some reason?”

Grosgrena said, “They’re of Darabella’s own design. When they’re imbued with magic they solidify the ambient mana making it easier for her to inscribe adamantium and other metals with functioning runes with the spells she wants to inscribe. I’m sure she’ll tell you about it if you ask her.”

“Of her own design?” Erick asked, “Then they’re not necessary to inscribe runes?”

“Also correct. But she does pretty well with them, and they’ve proven their worth. As has Darabella herself.”

Grosgrena cast a furrowed glance at the dark orbs. She was holding back some sort of scathing commentary, for sure.

Erick ignored that.

The Old Smith led the way up a small set of stairs that arched over the short curtain wall. Together, they came to the front door of Darabella’s workshop. There were no guards here, but there were guards standing on the roof, looking down at them for a brief moment, before returning to duty. Grosgrena touched the five centimeter thick metal doors with a flash of magic that soaked into the metal, which then opened the doors. A security measure? Yes. Some runes for [Telekinesis] and [Ward] flashed briefly inside, as some mechanisms had swiftly unlatched and others had provided the tension to open the door.

It was a fine security measure to prevent general snooping, but nothing that would stop a determined attacker... Which was rather normal, as far as locks on doors went.

The first floor was well lit, and split up into a few different rooms. In this first room, there were a few scattered weapons and armor and otherwise, each packed up in wooden crates on the right side, each clearly labeled for outgoing shipment. Only one of those items was adamantium; a short sword. The other rooms on the first floor were working spaces with a few people chipping away at various metals to create runic inscriptions. None of them were working on adamantium. They did a lot more here than just adamantium.

To the left of the entrance sat a man behind a counter.

The man hopped up, calling out, “Old Smith! Welcome!” And then he took in Erick, and Ophiel upon Erick’s shoulder. His eyes went wide. “Archmage Flatt. Welcome— Ah. It’s happening right now, then.”

“It is.” Grosgrena asked, “What’s she up to?”

“Darabella is currently working with students. It’s safe to interrupt.”

Erick could already see through the entire place.

On the second floor were individual rooms, much like the first, but all of them were simply set up for carving, with no actual carving being done. The second floor seemed primed for adamantium work, though, with various adamantium tools locked inside small vaults here and there.

The third floor was surely the primary enchanting room meant for special enchantments, for in the center of that space was a large, white stone table which was connected to the machinery that controlled the orbs outside, upon the wall. A black sword sat upon that white table, with the stone physically holding onto the blade and the hilt, looking like someone had stretched and stuck that stone like taffy to hold onto the weapon. This space also seemed to be the central teaching room.

A woman stood by the white stone table. She had to be Darabella, for she held a wooden knife in her hand and poked at the black sword while she spoke excitedly to the three students standing on the other side of the table, listening to her speak.

Darabella was a medium-tall woman of thick brownish hair and light brown skin, with bright brown eyes and a clear voice. She didn’t seem to notice that Erick and Grosgrena had arrived, or else she was just that engrossed in her lesson. Probably the latter, if she was as good as Grosgrena had said; she had to have a mana sense, for sure.

Grosgrena led the way up the stairs to the third floor. Erick followed. As they reached the landing and entered the main room, Darabella glanced their way, her eyes going wide. She instantly gave a little ‘Yip!’ and her wooden knife fell from her grasp to clatter upon the ground. Her students suddenly whipped around to see what was happening, and they, too, went wide-eyed.

Darabella cut off her lesson there, saying, “Ah hem! Uh! Students! We have a guest today— We have a private lesson today with Archmage Erick Flatt. Uh.” She whispered to them, “See you tomorrow.”

As Grosgrena and Erick stepped to the side of the stairwell, the students rapidly nodded and bowed and generally tried to move fast to get away, but one of them started to say something to Darabella and she waved him off with a ‘tsk tsk!’ and the kid got the message. Soon, the third floor was empty of students.

Erick called them students, and they were, but they were also all in their 20s, at least, and probably at the top of their field. More and more, Erick was becoming of the opinion that achieving certain levels of magic required less in the way of talent, and more in the way of knowing the right people and making the right connections. Brains helped, but they were not strictly necessary.

Grosgrena stepped forward, introducing Erick and Darabella to each other, saying, “Archmage Erick Flatt. Adamantium Rune Smith Darabella. She does about half of the adamantium runework that comes out of the Black Blade. She’ll likely be the one to inscribe your orders. Darabella, this is Archmage Flatt.”

Erick said, “Nice to meet you, Darabella.”

Darabella stumbled over her words, saying, “Nice to meet you too, uh, Erick— I mean! Archmage.” She looked down at the ground, at the wooden knife she had dropped. She nudged the knife under the table with the side of her foot, putting the instrument out of direct sight as she asked, “Uh. So what’s going to happen now?”

Grosgrena barely kept the frown off of her face as she stared at Darabella, calmly saying, “You’re going to instruct the Archmage in what he wishes to learn. Runecraft, primarily, but anything else he might wish to understand about our ways, you will tell him.”

“Of course!” Darabella paused. “… Everything?”

“Yes.” Grosgrena said, “We went over this once already. Yes.”

“Okay okay!” Darabella said, “I’m just making sure! Everyone is always changing their minds or doing some political thing behind my back, and I needed to be sure. You know he’s going to ask about how the building enchants work and I’m going to tell him and no one is allowed to get mad at me later, okay?”

Grosgrena probably had a lot of security issues with Darabella, didn’t she?

But that wasn’t Erick’s problem.

He couldn’t help but smile a bit at the ‘no one is allowed to get mad at me later’, though.

Grosgrena did not sigh, but she wanted to. “I’m sure if you tell him even the basics of runecraft then he’ll figure out all the rest on his own. That’s all it took you, after all.” There was a lot more to that story that she wasn’t saying, but Grosgrena left it there as she turned to Erick, saying, “Good luck. We’ve got lots more teachers for you to go through after Darabella, but she is the best.”

The Old Smith took her leave.

Erick turned to Darabella, asking, “So you carve into the history of an item, to produce magical anchors?”

Darabella’s eyes brightened. “Yes! That’s exactly it! Not many people understand this first point! Oh! This is going to be fun.” She smiled wide, saying, “Now let’s—” She held out her empty hand, trying to point at the sword on the table with a knife that wasn’t there. “Oh. Dammit. I lost another knife.” She began touching the top of the white stone table, as if her knife would suddenly appear. She paused. She turned to Erick, stared for a moment like deer in headlights, then she walked to the side of the room toward a cabinet, saying, “I seem to have misplaced my teaching knife. I can’t really use normal knives when teaching because I’m very good at cutting— Ah ha!” She slammed the cabinet shut then opened a very obvious drawer labeled ‘EXTRA KNIVES HERE!!!’. Twirling a new wooden knife in her hand, she asked, “How much runecarving have you done before?”

Erick took a second to look around the room. There were four discarded wooden knives hiding here and there. Under the stone table, in the bottom drawer of a desk, behind a crate that looked to be shipping out soon, and stuck in the dirt of a potted plant in the corner of the room. All of those knives were rather well used, and all the knives in the knife drawer were similarly well used. Someone probably came by after Darabella was done for the day and plucked them from their hiding spots, to stick in the drawer of extra knives. Maybe she even did it herself.

Erick answered her, “I discovered your discipline yesterday. So: none at all.”

“… I can work with that. How much enchanting?”

“Enough to know I’m terrible at it.”

Darabella narrowed her eyes as her fear vanished. She pointed with her knife, starting, “You have brought me a difficult—” And then she realized who she was pointing a knife at, and she almost fumbled the knife to the ground again. She caught it before it fell all the way, then she tried to casually continue, “—A difficult case.”

Erick smiled. “I have; yes.”

“Enchanting Spell?”

“Failed, so no.”

“Good. Enchanting spells are terrible. Do you have a knife?”

“Nope. Almost got one at your Black Blade shop, but decided against it.”

“What is your goal here?”

“To create anchors for a Gate Network.”

Erick didn’t know that he had a reason for coming to Enduring Forge until he was here and he heard what adamantium was capable of doing. This was his Worldly Path, for sure.

After a moment, Darabella said, “A single goal seems doable. I’ve been working on a Teleport Square design to improve the range on that spell, so maybe we can help each other.”

Erick smiled happily. “I hope we can.”