Ar'Kendrithyst

Five hours of sleep were more than enough.

Soon, Erick and Poi were back out on the town. After a pass by the bank to get some numbers, the two of them went to the Smithy. Erick worked a bit with the people in the Smithy’s head office to put down some payments to the people who had taught him about Smithing, and then it was back to learning how to work metal. It seemed none of the head Smiths were willing to devote time to Erick, though, which made sense, since the head Smiths had work that needed to be done. They weren’t really teachers, anyway.

And so, through Idalial this time, the head Adamantium Armorsmith, Erick was able to meet with another Smith able to teach him, named Origotha. Both Mordog and Obrik were not there; they were probably sleeping.

Through Origotha, Erick learned a bit more about everything that a Smith needed to know. The Smithy apparently provided a standard, introductory education to most people who wanted to pay for it, and though Erick’s education was not standard at all, he fit enough of the molds that fitting him into the established structure wasn’t too difficult. Origotha apparently had students most of the time, but today had been her day off, for her own work.

Origotha seemed fine with this, though.

She went on to explain how, according to what she heard from Obrik, Erick was ripping through the normal five year apprenticeship in much less time than expected. The ‘five year’ time limit was more of a suggestion than a reality, though; some people took longer while some only required a year. The actual graduation requirement was more of a ‘can you make a perfect sword/shield/armor’ than anything numerical.

It turned out that Origotha was a rather good teacher, too, but she was about as scared of Erick as most other people.

She had a way of hedging her words with him that she never had with actual apprentices, as evident by the few times they were interrupted by actual apprentices, and her voice turned harder, and more authoritative. Origotha seemed to be incapable of using that tone with Erick, though. She had a really hard time telling him what he was doing wrong until he finally told her to relax and treat him like he was a first year apprentice. At that point, she seemed to open up, and her words came easier.

Still rather stilted, though.

Eventually, when Erick was in the middle of making yet another dagger, Origotha finally spoke up.

With eyes full of concern, and a voice half-full of the same, she said, “You know you’ll never be a Smith without the actual Class, right. You can only guess at the phase changes that you’re causing in the steel, and at the strength you’re moving around inside the metal.” With finality creeping into her words, she said, “You will never know how to forge like a Smith.”

Erick smiled softly, saying, “I’m okay with that, Origotha. I need functional and strong. Not perfect. If I can do 90% of what a Smith can do, then that’s fine by me.”

“… Okay. But your cap might only be 75%. Maybe 90% on a really, really good day.”

Erick laughed. “That’s fine, too.”

Origotha watched him for a lie, and finding none, she said, “Then you can throw that dagger back into the melting pot and start again. You’ve got stress fractures all over the place; it’s ruined.”

“… Eh?”

Erick frowned as he held up the dagger. He had finished the tempering and the annealing and he was almost ready to start sharpening it, and it looked fine. He stared at the metal with his mana sense, and saw nothing amiss. The blade truly did look fine.

He handed the dagger to her, asking, “Where are the fractures?”

Origotha took out a piece of chalk and drew on the unworked blade. “Here in the hilt, there's a tiny one on the back of the blade, and this one by the tip will ruin the point, all the way down to here.” She handed the knife back to him. “Take it and slam it into that stone tester, and watch it break right where I lined.”

Erick was briefly skeptical, but then he got over that emotion because Origotha knew a lot more about metal than he did. So, he took the unfinished knife in his hand and slammed it into the stone tester.

The metal snapped at the point. The hilt broke in half in his palm, causing his [Personal Ward] to flicker white at the damage. The tiny break in the middle turned into something much larger and proved to be the true breaking point of the dagger, ruining the knife as the metal tool broke nearly in half.

With a frown, Erick gathered the broken bits with a flick of light, to join the piece still held in his right hand. He looked down at them, and at the chalk markings that perfectly lined the breaks.

He asked Origotha, “Is your Metal Sense more of a future sense?”

“Uhh…” Origotha was caught off-guard by the question. She frowned a bit, confused, saying, “It lets me know the problems the metal has? Not sure what it does beyond that.”

“I’ve heard of what Metal Sense allows, but would you mind telling me what it is you actually see? What Metal Sense does for you? Start at the beginning.”

“Sure.” Origotha said, “No self-respecting Smith goes without Metal Sense, and they’d all tell you the same about what it does. It… Actually. Try crafting another knife, and then we can pick up this topic again. [Mend] is not useful here; start from the beginning.”

Erick saw no reason not to comply, and so he did. Not half an hour later, he had taken another block of forge steel and turned it into another unfinished knife of comparable quality to the previous one. It had no edge, and it still needed to be ground and polished using all the other tools in Origotha’s arsenal, but it was unmistakably a knife. He had gotten a bit faster at the creation of it, too.

“This is a rather decent knife. Only one stress line in this one; here.” Origotha took the blade in hand and marked a chalk line across a three centimeter stretch of the blade, near the center of what would eventually become the blade’s edge. “You might be able to grind that problem away during the edging and polishing process. But the problem would still be there. If you struck the knife in that spot with as much Strength as some people have, then the whole thing could crack right there, for sure. This is good enough for a kitchen knife, though.”

“So what do you see with Metal Sense?”

Origotha nodded a little, but she didn’t speak right away. “I’ve been thinking how to tell you that, so you’ll have to forgive me but I’m not good with lightwards. But I guess I have to make a lightward.” Origotha held up a hand, and paused. “Yeah. This isn’t going to be pretty.” And then she cast.

An exact lightward copy of the knife sprung into being, about five times larger than the actual thing.

Erick instantly said, “That’s a great lightward!”

Origotha had a small smile. “Thanks, but if I’m not coddling you, then I expect you to not coddle me; that lightward is shit.”

They obviously had different teaching methods.

“I can see what you’re trying to tell me, and that’s what’s important.” Erick looked over the lightward, comparing it to the actual knife, and said, “So. I can already tell you that I can not mana sense the metal inside the knife like you Metal Sense. What you see is… rather different.”

The lightward image was chock full of tiny, irregular honeycomb-bubble-like grains, with each of those grains jumbled up, but with a flow to them that matched the forge lines that Erick had created in the forging of the dagger. The wardlight showed more than a microscopic picture of the material, though. Unseen flows of some sort of unknown power circled through the weapon, moving like water, or air, but frozen in time. The only place where Erick saw a disruption to this flow was exactly where Origotha had marked with the chalk.

In that fractured point, some of the grain structure was… aligned, for lack of a better word. A lot of the grains were very random, but for some reason, the grains in that area were about half lined up in a weird, broken sort of way. It was sort of like if Erick had thrown down a bunch of bricks on the ground, but in a random way some of those bricks decided to line up next to each other, creating a fault that was only half there. If any stress was applied, that fault would surely widen, sending cracks through the whole piece, or at least chipping the steel right there.

Erick went silent in contemplation, his gaze switching between the lightward and the actual dagger, looking for the truth of Origotha’s markings.

He found nothing of what Origotha had found.

Erick asked, “Explain?”

Origotha explained, “So you’ve got a lot of parts right. The grains are well made and not too irregular, and they flow in the directions they’re generally supposed to flow. The weapon won’t break under normal stresses, but anyone with a Strength over 20 will easily break the weapon if they hit it in this disrupted spot, here.” She offered, “Try to [Metalshape] a dagger and I’ll show you the difference?”

“Very well.” Erick grabbed his broken, failed dagger, and Shaped it into a proper dagger. While the result was a perfectly pretty weapon, he knew it was only good as a utensil, and nothing more. He handed the ‘weapon’ to Origotha.

Origotha took the weapon, and concentrated upon it for a long moment.

Then she cast another lightward into the air, saying, “There are too many problems for me to show you all of them, but I got the largest ones.”

“I... see that.”

And Erick did. For the first time, he actually saw the problem of [Metalshape].

The Shaped dagger was a mess of scrambled grain sizes, some large, some small, many looking like amoebas stretched all over the place, while some that were perfectly spherical. Those tiny spherical dots —almost ball bearings, actually— of metal were terrible for the ‘flow’ of the dagger; they acted like boulders in a stream, or mountains in a jet stream, sending the flow wildly off course, and even dragging bits of the honeycomb along for the ride. Some of the grains were jagged and fractured, too, which was equally as bad as the ball bearings, but bad in a different way.

This was all well and good. But. Erick saw none of that with his own mana sense. Well. Almost none of that.

Erick said, “I can only see one of the tiny spheres. But you’ve got several up there in the lightward.”

“Ah. There are hundreds in that dagger. My lightward is off.” Origotha said, “But, to explain: [Metalshape] introduces those spheres into the metal, but they’re not hard to get rid of with proper forging. Heat and a hammer will get rid of most of them, though that’s a pretty poor way to make a weapon. Don’t want to ever start with [Metalshape]; you wanna keep that spell far away from your tools.”

Erick said, “Maybe I’ll look into the [Future Sight] angle, but from what I am seeing, your Metal Sense does not appear to be a [Future Sight], or at least not fully—” Erick glanced toward the door, adding, “But I’ll have to do that later, it seems.”

Origotha looked to the open door, her face full of confusion—

Grosgrena walked through the door and locked eyes upon Erick and Origotha.

“Hello, Grosgrena.” Erick said, “Something the matter?”

“Yes!” Grosgrena said, “We’re not taking your money! You’re taking our lessons and you’ll take them for free, and you’ll appreciate it, and that’s that. Appreciation. If any of my Smiths accept money from you, then they’re no Smiths of mine!”

Origotha reeled back, her eyes going wide.

Erick stood stunned for a brief moment, then he said, “Okay? Uh. Sure?”

Behind him, Origotha froze, and then she let out a tiny, disappointed sigh.

Grosgrena nodded. She had solved a problem, and that was that. She added, “Aside from all that nonsense: Barir is asking after you. Wants to know if you have time to kill some monsters. They’re ready for you, if you do.”

“I can do that.” Erick set down his borrowed tools, telling Origotha, “Thank you for all your instruction, but duty calls.”

Origotha bowed, saying, “Anytime, Archmage. Thank you for gracing my forge with your presence.”

Erick whispered to her, “I’ll find a way to get that money to you, anyway.”

Grosgrena narrowed her eyes—

Origotha briefly lit up like the happiest woman in the world, but then she crushed that wayward emotion down, and said, “No thank you. Old Smith Grosgrena is right. I cannot accept your gold. It would be dishonorable. It would taint the good works you have done for us already.”

“Ah…” Erick asked, “If you’re sure?”

“I am.” Origotha nodded. “Thank you for the thought; it is enough.”

Grosgrena smirked a tiny bit at that, but she said nothing.

As Origotha returned to her regular work and Grosgrena saw that everything would go as she wanted it to go, Erick left the forge and walked with the Old Smith down the way, back toward the gate. They spoke of small things, and of how a Smith could see the faults in metal, while a normal mana sense could not. Was Metal Sense based on [Future Sight]? Or some other variation of that magic?

Grosgrena said, “A Smith’s Metal Sense is possibly [Future Sight] related, but I don’t know about that; that’s esoteric magic. Not sure who would know...” She glanced off to the left, then turned back to Erick, asking, “You ever heard of the Orrery of Rozeta?”

Erick blinked, then he said, “Yes. I have.”

Grosgrena eyed Erick’s weird look for a moment, then continued, “I heard that people make pilgrimages there all the time, looking for answers. Sometimes people even find what they’re looking for, but mostly they find answers from other pilgrims. The priests of Rozeta don’t give up any answers to anything.” She shrugged. “But I’ve never been. Have you?”

“Not yet.”

“Now I ain’t know much about Metal Sense aside from what it shows me as compared to a normal mana sense.” Grosgrena asked, “I can ask around for specifics, if you want? Someone around here has to know something. Lotta that esoteric shit is buried in books in libraries, too. Might take me a while to get you an answer.”

Erick smiled. “I would take that offer. Thank you.”

“Nothing to it.”

- - - -

The Bastion Down Below looked as though someone had taken a series of double-ended black castle towers of different sizes, bunched them all together, wrapped them in curtain walls, and then plunged straight through the lowest platform of Enduring Forge. A third of the structure was exposed on both the top and the bottom of the platform, while the central third was fully encased in the platform itself. The interior of the lowest platform was riddled with passageways and checkpoints and a whole lot of oversight, in the form of hundreds of people casting varied and odd detection spells over all the ore and people who passed through this place. The infrastructure in the platform probably accounted for another four or five Bastion-sized areas of usable space.

It was a sight to see, for sure, and Erick saw a lot of it as he stood upon a Teleport Square a hundred meters from the main entrance to the upper Bastion. Ophiel flitted about, with one on his shoulder and nine scattered around, both on this side and the other side of the platform, investigating as surreptitiously as they could. The people on watch —and there were a lot of those types— didn’t seem to mind. Some waved. Ophiel even waved back.

Erick stepped off of the Teleport Square with Poi at his side.

Not too far ahead stood a checkpoint for entrance into the Bastion, with a few people already in line.

Erick did not need to wait for the line, though, for Jalrock, their guide from the other day, stood near the checkpoint wearing what appeared to be grey army fatigues. He waved, and came right on over.

“Archmage! Welcome to the Bastion Down Below.”

Erick smirked. “I didn’t expect to see you down here?”

“Oh? Well. I get around.” Jalrock shrugged, saying, “Everyone is required to be a part of the army if they want to get anywhere in Enduring Forge, and I’m no different.” He gestured back to the massive black structure, asking, “General Barir Adama awaits, along with a few Team Leaders and Scouts. Allow me to escort you?”

“Sure.”

Erick and Poi skipped the checkpoint line, but they did pass through more than a few detection spells on their way to the half-meter thick main door of the Bastion. A few of those detection spells even went off, including one large blue flash that sent streamers of blue light in every direction, but Jalrock waved off the lightshow and the nearby guards made no fuss. More than a few of the nearby guards even smiled at the blue light, as though they had seen exactly what they thought they would see, but it was still nice to get confirmation.

Jalrock explained, “That blue one is for major artifacts or any other items that pass through here containing a large amount of mana. The smaller red and green ones are for smaller, still notable items, which is expected of an archmage and entourage.”

Erick and Poi followed right along, and they entered the main hallway of the Bastion. Beyond that door they took a left, down a hallway with a blue line of paint down the center. Erick checked out some nearby signs, and saw that the blue line was for army personnel only. Green was for miners. Red was for guests. Every hallway also had a white line with arrows in it, pointing the way toward the nearest exit. This main entrance was pretty solidly blue, with only a single red line that went off in a direction opposite of Erick’s apparent destination.

This place had a rather expansive runic web, too, but it was different from the one on the middle platform, or city hall’s platform. Erick saw anti-[Teleport] runework on this one.

And there were a lot of people here. They weren’t ten meters in the front door and they had already passed a good dozen people already. Some of those people even bowed to Erick.

They went up a winding staircase and down another small hallway, passing another four checkpoints as they went, which Jalrock explained were mostly detectors for biological threats, and which didn’t go off. Eventually they reached what might have been a main command station, or at least one of the well-used ones; a place like this probably had a dozen command stations.

The room was large and multi-leveled, with the center of the room slightly lower than the rest of the room. There was a ring-like table in that center space, with a very intricate lightward hovering in the air in the center of that ring. It appeared to be a map of the surrounding three hundred kilometers. To the sides of the room were workstations, filled with people with [Viewing Screen]s attached to the runic web. Overseers oversaw operations, each of them with ten telepathic tendrils coming off of their heads, as they coordinated whatever was happening further down below the Down Below, in the lands beyond the cavern which held Enduring Forge.

General Barir and several other important-looking people stood in the center of the room, near the lightward, some inside the ring-table near the lightward, others outside and sitting; all of them waiting for Erick’s arrival.

At Erick’s entrance, the people in the room turned to him, some faster than others. And then they stood, and bowed. Three seconds passed, and then most everyone returned to work.

Erick stepped forward—

As General Barir stepped closer to meet him, saying, “Welcome to Greater Command.”

“Thanks for having me.” Erick asked, “So how do you want this spellwork to go out?”

Barir nodded quickly, then turned back to the giant map, saying, “This is a map of the Underworld for 350 kilometers in every direction. My people here—” He gestured to his people, saying, “Will be coming behind your cleanup with various seeds of various anti-monster plants and fungi, as well as eggs and pregnant beasts from a few monster species that are easily controlled and deterred by those anti-monster plants. It’s mostly different types of rats for the terrestrial biomes, and some crab species for the aquatic biomes. It’s a system we’ve worked out well with our Beastmasters, but it’s a system that breaks down when you’re not looking at it, and reestablishing the broken system is easier said than done.” He turned to Erick fully, saying, “So what we want out of you, is to flood the land with your [Withering]s or whatever spells you want to use, and we’ll take care of the rest.” He added, “[Withering]s should be enough, though.”

Erick looked over the map. He counted a hundred and thirteen tunnel systems stretching out from the cavern of Enduring Forge. Those tunnels wound and joined and split as they were wont. Most formed cramped tunnels, maybe only four meters wide but a few hundred meters long, and winding. Some wound down, or up, into massive caverns multiple dozens of kilometers across. And the problem got even more complex after that. Multiple paths opened up everywhere. Erick imagined being down there, in the deeper parts. He imagined it would be easy to get lost, especially when gravity started to pull in odd directions, like the books all said it did.

But this close to the surface, getting lost was not possible.

Ophiel would do fine out there.

Erick said, “Beastmaster monsters would still be subject to [Withering]. They’re not out there right now, right?”

“As soon as you agree to this action, and as soon as we understand a timetable of what you’re able to do, then the Beastmasters will get recalled.” Barir said, “All of them already know the dangers your sort of spell represents to their charges and we’re ready to pull out as soon as you say you will begin.”

Erick nodded. “Next question: Are there shadelings out there? I would prefer not to kill people unless I have to.”

“There are not.” The question didn’t even faze Barir. “But even if there are, I understand your spell kills by drawing water out of the body. A threatened shadeling would retreat to the shadows, providing you with no egress to harm them.”

“That’s a good point,” Erick said, “But sometimes shadelings aren’t under their own control. If I stop the killing early, it will probably be because I encountered one in my Kill Notifications and I would need to investigate.”

Erick had no reason to suspect that there was something sketchy going on here, but he wanted to be upfront about what would happen if the worst should happen. At the very least, Erick would stop [Withering], and he didn’t want Barir to be upset when he called the whole project off for a while. Barir seemed to understand this.

“Acceptable.” Barir turned to his people, and began, “Let me introduce you to some of the Farmers and Beastmasters who will be following your [Withering], or whatever other spells you might be using. This is Madriag, Beastmaster, and Sarigal, Farmer, and…”

Introductions went out.

And then an odd thing happened.

Erick found himself delighted at the informality of it all. Barir treated these people not as his soldiers, but like his family. He spoke of Beastmasters raising special lineages of rats that could trace their heritage back to the founding of Enduring Forge, and of the mushrooms that his people had cultivated to fight back the Shadows, no matter how deep they got.

It reminded Erick a lot of Spur, actually.

As Erick asked questions about protocol and planting, and he got answers, Erick was delighted again at how well these people knew their land. They knew all of the monsters and resistance that Erick should expect to run up against, as they pointed out problematic points here and there in the lands beyond Enduring Forge. They had been protecting this land for a very long time, and everyone here was a pro, while every new soldier was taken under the wings of the old soldiers until they, too, were strong enough to lead their own forays out into the Underworld. After today, after Erick took back the nearby Underworld for Enduring Forge, and after Enduring Forge installed flora and fauna which would ensure the land remained under their power, Enduring Forge’s soldiers would have a much easier time of it all. And that was good.

Not half an hour after arriving at the Bastion Down Below, Ophiels launched from dark towers, flying into the cavern of Enduring Forge. The air around them began to glow a ghostly white. They might have resembled moons, brought down to the Underworld, each trailing an individualized tsunami of thick air that poured downward, into the tunnels and the darkness beyond.

The Kill Notifications started rolling in immediately.

- - - -

Ten hours later, with most of that time spent talking to the people around him and with a few breaks here and there, the cleanup was over. There had been no tricks from Enduring Forge. There had been no unexpected kills; no shadelings, no cannibals living outside the city walls, no overly-deadly monsters. The ‘reset’, which is what some of the guys on the ground had taken to calling the take-back of the lands around Enduring Forge, went about four times faster than the army of Enduring Forge had expected it to go, and mostly because Erick was extremely proactive in putting Ophiel in danger over risking the lives of the men and women on the ground.

Erick did not clean out every single monster infestation. He did not kill every single threat. Such a project would have taken months, if not years, due to the fact that if you killed a monster in one location, the rest of the monsters of the Underworld just moved into that newly opened real estate. No; Erick simply killed 75% of the monsters living around Enduring Forge, and only the most obvious ones at that.

Which was more than good enough according to Barir and everyone else in the army.

There had been no surprises that Erick and Ophiel could not handle, for though there were some giant leeches and hidden spider colonies and ravenous oozes here and there, which sent everyone else running for cover, Erick simply solved those problems with sweeps of starlight, or mandalas of lightning. One thing Erick did not expect, though, was that he never encountered a single animal larger than his thumb.

“So animals have a tough time down here, don’t they,” Erick said, when he and Barir and only a few other people were left in the command room.

Those other people were mostly at the monitoring stations, but they weren’t seeing anything unexpected on the monitors. Just a bunch of now-empty tunnels, some inquisitive rats exploring their new, freshly [Grow]n Underworld fungi forests and otherwise, and many, many crab eggs hatching in the cleaned-out Underworld lakes, next to gently growing Underworld underwater grasses. There were people in all of those Screens, but the Screen watchers weren’t monitoring the people themselves; they were looking for threats to the people. All of the team leaders and other high ranking people were out there right now, solidifying the Reset, alongside the rank and file.

Barir said, “There are lizards and fish and a few other things of that size out there that will evolve into monsters and become a problem for our rats and crabs, but our Beastmasters will be handling them as they become problems. It’s a never-ending cycle of destruction and rebirth down here, but we can keep it in order with enough well-applied pressures.” He said, “Taking back the Underworld is the hardest part, but keeping it? This we can do very well.”

“I didn’t see any mines out there, though. Where do you guys mine?”

Barir smiled. “So you didn’t notice the pathways?”

Barir had gotten comfortable enough with Erick to lose a lot of his stiffness, but he still played most of his cards close to his chest. He had revealed a bit, though.

Erick guessed, “The mines are far away, and [Teleport] links them with Enduring Forge? And the miners bring their hauls with them? Or. No. [Teleport] doesn’t work that well if you go down even a hundred kilometers deeper— When does [Teleport] stop functioning altogether?”

“Around here, [Teleport]’s distance capability drops down to the single-kilometer range at 535 kilometers deep, but even at this hundred kilometer depth, you can only get a hundred kilometers on a horizontal [Teleport].” Barir said, “Other places are different.”

Erick nodded, then continued, “So you either have many people [Teleport]ing closer to the surface on multi-blip trips, or they’re— Ah. It’s [Stone Body]. And hidden areas inside the stone which serve as safe Teleport Squares.” He added, “Or else you’re fucking with me and there are no pathways and all you have is [Gate].”

Barir laughed loud. “Ah! [Gate]. A wondrous spell. Not one we have access to, as far as I know.” He said, “Your guess with [Stone Body] was correct, but only for transportation to here. We don’t allow people to come into the city from the Underworld without a lot of decontamination, or them having [Stone Body], or something else which will guarantee that they don’t bring a contaminant with them. As far as the actual mines? Those locations are secrets known only to the noble houses which have one.”

All of that fit neatly with what Erick had seen, except…

He asked, “No noble house has [Gate]? Not a single one? You guys have a Wayfarer’s Guildhouse in town, though; I saw it.”

Barir’s smile remained upon his face. He was truly happy that the day had gone so well, and he was happy to assuage all of Erick’s fears, too. “I’m a noble, and I know all of the rest of us, too. If anyone has [Gate], then they’re keeping that under deep secrecy, which is not something we do around here.” He added, “Not with fellow clansmen, anyway.”

Barir was a noble? He didn’t act like it, at all.

In fact, Erick hadn’t really seen many people who he would consider ‘nobles of Enduring Forge’, either. It had been a few days since Erick had arrived. He had expected to see at least a few nobles before now, unless they were all truly abiding by their decision not to approach Erick for help with Imaging, or anything like that.

Erick asked, “How many nobles are in Clan Adamantium?”

“A lot of people. Practically everyone in a position of authority is a member of the Clan in one way or another.” Barir thumbed over to a guy at a large viewing screen. “That’s my nephew, working that Screen, and he’s a noble, too.” The nephew waved. Barir continued, “Jalrock, your guide, is the patriarch of his house of Slate, one of the oldest and most prestigious noble branches of Clan Adamantium. Arakag is my niece. Grosgrena is my great aunt. I heard you and Darabella got along fantastically, and she married into the Clan… Her husband was killed a decade ago. He was a fine man.” Barir continued, “Clan Adamantium has a controlling interest in all of Enduring Forge, and we keep it that way either by adoption or marriage, but almost none of us act like the nobles you might be used to. Even the noble district is mostly empty because we prefer to be here, among everyone else.”

“No one lives up there?” Erick asked, eyeing the man. “That’s weird.”

“Well—” Barir digressed, “Some people do. Mostly it’s storage. There’s nothing special about that district anyway, except that we do, technically, have houses up there. It’s nothing special. It’s not even the original noble district of Enduring Forge.” He said, “City hall is the true ancestral home of Clan Adamantium. Your room right now used to be the Grand Mage’s Tower. There’s some history there about that move, but in the end, we find that using the ancestral home as a city hall is a much more useful option.”

“That’s all a bit unexpected.” Erick said, “You guys certainly run a nice city, though. So it seems to be working for you.”

“Aye. Glad you like it. The only problem is that it does get cramped, for we only got so much land, after all. And we’re in the Underworld with a mostly-itinerant population, so that carries its own set of problems.” Barir said, “So people can come and go however they want, as long as they submit to normal Underworld protocols.”

“It doesn’t seem that bad to me.” Erick had noticed the screenings at the public Teleport Squares here and there across the city, and even at the Teleport Square on the surface, above the chasm above Enduring Forge. “A lot more than I’m used to, but all of it looked reasonable.”

“Personally, I know we’re a bit lax with how stringent we should be, and we pay for that sometimes with oddities making their way into the city. But certain people can be trusted not to bring in problems, like you, for instance, with your Mind Mage man at your side.” Barir said, “You were vetted long before you stepped foot into this city. For normal people, though… Enduring Forge is their first stop in the Underworld, and they simply don’t know the danger that the dark truly represents, or how easy it is to bring that danger back home. Foolish; a lot of ‘em.” He said, “I bet you get a lot of people like that over in Spur, too.”

“Adventurers trying for Ar’Kendrithyst but knowing fuck-all about the dangers? Aye.” Erick said, “People have to pass some written exams before we approve them for entrance to the Dead City. They can bypass all of those and enter the place directly if they want to, though. Some people do. Those people usually die— Well. I don’t know how it is these days. I’m sure it’s all changing, too.”

Barir nodded solemnly, saying, “It’s always dangerous, even if the danger has changed. We never got the normal monster surges we expected to come after Shadow’s Feast…” He asked, “Those monsters have to still be out there, don’t they?”

“Well. No.” Erick frowned, saying, “Someone could have killed them all.” He looked to the map floating in front of them, saying, “One of the Blessed Shades could have gone to ground and cleaned out a whole bunch of problems that they knew were coming. Maybe not directly, but they could have told people about them—”

Or maybe...

Maybe Fallopolis came here and cleared out the threats that Enduring Forge had been expecting? Erick hadn’t actually Blessed her. Fallopolis could certainly go around murdering pockets of monsters readying themselves to surge up from the Underworld… If she wanted to. But then again, simply informing someone of pockets of monsters that are getting ready to surge is usually enough to get a trained assault squad into those pockets to kill those surges before they start.

Yeah. That seemed more reasonable.

Goldie could have passed around a few notes and solved a lot of problems. She probably had, too.

Barir noticed none of Erick’s inner turmoil, or at least he did a good job at pretending to ignore it, for Barir went right along, saying, “I tend not to trust anything coming out of the shadows, so it’ll take me a good twenty years to believe what you accomplished in Ar’Kendrithyst.”

And then the man realized who he had said that to, and what his words had been. He sweated under his clothes. His eyes dilated in a fear response. Had he spoken too freely? Had he relaxed too much? Had he fucked himself over, big time?

Oh. That was disappointing to see.

Erick had thought they were past that.

So Erick chuckled, sighed, and tried to put the man back at ease, saying, “The only truth I know of Last Shadow’s Feast, is that I saw what I saw, and I did what I did, and that Melemizargo abandoned his clergy to their own devices. Of all of the events of Last Shadow’s Feast, the last point is the only thing I truly believe to have happened.”

Barir relaxed, fractionally. He said, “That’s good to hear, then; that you’re not wholly sure, either. All one can ever truly know about Shadows is that they’re tricky.”

“They are.”

A moment of silence passed.

Barir said, “After this ‘Reset’, has been secured... Not sure I like that name, but the soldiers often call things as they see them, and those names usually stick— After the Reset, after our populace is vetted as clean of intestinal cores, and after you [Withering] them, too, which is still a few days away… We’re having a feast. You’re the guest of honor. Will you come?”

“Of course I will come.” Erick added, “I like boneless fried chicken strips and sauces, but don’t make that the main course—”

Poi gave a small cough.

“—And some sort of fish, and something spicy, and something fancy, and a lot of something meaty.”

Barir smiled a little, his mirth seeming to return, now that he knew that saying the wrong thing wouldn’t set Erick off like some sort of easily-exploding bomb. The general proclaimed, “It shall be done!”

Barir and Erick spoke for a little while longer about further actions that might need to be taken to secure the Reset, but after that, Erick and Poi returned to their room in city hall.

And then Erick switched out Poi for Teressa, and went back to the Smithy.

- - - -

Erick had a few questions piled up, and so he asked them before they started learning.

Grosgrena said, “The runic web concerns are a matter of security, so we can’t tell you those since you don’t live here and you have no vested interest in remaining here. If that changes, then we’ll open up all those secrets to you, but until then, it is how it is. What I can tell you, though, is that most spells —Including most variations of [Chaining Dispel]— are locked to their specific section of the runic web. Besides that, we can ignore many of those types of [Dispels] because it still costs the assailant X amount of mana to erase X amount of spellwork, and we have lots of spellwork in that web. The full magic saturation point for a kilogram of steel is in the millions, and we got many times that number in our web.” She added, “[Force Breaker] is specifically guarded against, though. All of those types of spells won’t get more than a few meters through the web. Now a [Chain Force Breaker] is a rare spell indeed, but we’ve got methods to deal with that, too.

“As for all the smaller concerns with foreign runes inscribed in the metal: if we’re under direct attack and we know of it, then we can separate the web to prevent your [Fireball] scenario. This also solves the [Chain Force Breaker] scenario. But no, I won’t be elaborating on that.

“As for your questions about Metal Sense, and why a normal mana sense won’t let you see the fractures that I can see, I couldn’t find any people, but I did find a book! It’s not here, though.” Grosgrena said, “It’s in my office under lock and key, so we can get it when we’re done here. I can’t let you have the book, either, but you can take it with you to your room and read it while you’re here in Enduring Forge. The book records one of Clan Adamantium’s ancestor’s experiments with Metal Sense. From what I gathered, Metal Sense is some form of [Future Sight] adapted toward metal, based on understanding the mana currents naturally present inside metal. I’m sure you’ll get more from that book than I did.” She gestured to the stone work bench beside them, saying, “And now: what we’re here for.”

The stone table was only a small part of a large private forge that was built for one purpose, and one purpose only: the imbuing of magic into metal. The tools to accomplish such a feat were different for different metals, but that difference was mostly one of size.

The main imbuing machine was black adamantium and it looked like two pillars, one on top of the other. A large wheel and mechanism with a counterweight attached to the top pillar, so when the wheel rotated, the top pillar would systematically raise and lower against the bottom pillar. In the space between, the bottom pillar had a divot, while the top pillar had a bulge, but there was enough space in that pounding point for a normal-sized ingot of metal to not spill out of the crush zone, when the machine eventually got to crushing.

“Watch, and learn,” said the Old Smith.

Grosgrena picked up an ingot of silver that looked much too heavy for the old, shrunken woman. She walked over to the crusher, and with a touch of her other hand against the adamantium machine, the pillar lifted up like it was being polite. The Old Smith placed the ingot in the cradle, and then she cast a spell across the space, filling the crushing zone with sparkling black magic that quickly faded away to a small density of the air.

“This is so complicated that it’s almost a school of magic on its own, but the basic idea is the same across all metal imbuing processes.” Grosgrena returned to Erick, saying, “Making magical metal requires a spell that enforces Rest, like what I hear your [Prismatic Ward] can do. Your own [Prismatic Ward] won’t be good for this, though; you need direction in your Rest, not a blanket Rest. Or try out your own [Prismatic Ward] and see what happens; I’m not your mother. It’ll make some sort of magical metal, for sure. Probably have to use platinum as your base, though. Anyway. This particular Restful spell is a simple [Absorption Ward] for 500 points. This is the best way to create Deep Sky Silver out of normal Silver.”

She lifted her arm, casting a small spell at the crusher.

And then the crusher began doing what it was meant to do.

The pillars came together and crushed the cold silver between two inexorable adamantium forces, filling the air with a loud screech as they deformed the ingot. Grosgrena smiled as a second screech filled the air, but a third screech didn’t come; the silver had deformed as much as the setup had allowed. It was now a partially crushed ingot filling up the bottom of the adamantium crucible. And it had gotten hot. The machine continued to crush, but it would not crush what had already been crushed beyond its reach.

Grosgrena said, “Now, every year, some fool kid loses an arm or gets a bent piece of metal lodged in their stomach, or something equally bad. I don’t think that’ll happen with you, but be aware of the danger of extreme pressures flicking metal across the forge like a particularly nasty [Rock Bolt]. Always be sure you have control over the metal in the pounder. Never operate a pounder when you’re not sure about its use.

“And all the other shitty disclaimers. Yada yada.

“This is how you stick magic into a metal and make it a magical metal. Broadly. Every metal has its own nuances, but Deep Sky Silver is the easiest to make, and the easiest to use to explain the process, for like most magical metals, Deep Sky Silver has degrees of power. And also like most metals, you can tell a lot about what you have created from the color of the metal during the forging process.

“This stuff right now is still silver. But with a few telekinetic turns, like this—”

With expert control and in the split second while the pounder was fully open, Grosgrena grabbed the silver in a telekinetic grip and flipped it over, turning the concave ‘ingot’ into a convex hump. The adamantium pillar crushed that hump back down, sending a loud screech through the room. Three more screeches followed that, but soon, though, the noise stopped. The pounder had crushed all it could crush.

And then Grosgrena flipped the silver over again, allowing the machine to do its work.

She spoke over the noise as she continued to flip the silver, saying, “Soon, the [Absorption Ward] will break. Maybe two more passes— There it goes!” She recast the Restful spell. “The magic will break four more times before we see the first shift in the silver, so we’ll go a lot faster now that you’ve seen the process a few times.”

The machine sped up.

Thun-screeech! Thun-screeech! Thun-screeech! Thun-screeech!

Grosgrena flipped the convex half-moon of metal over and over. Soon it got hot enough that she was able to bend the metal under her own [Telekinesis], which she did. Then she slipped the folded metal back into position, ensuring that the silver got crushed in a whole new, more violent way. She flipped and flopped and bent and flipped, working the silver and renewing the spellwork as needed.

After the [Ward] broke for the fourth time, Grosgrena pulled the well-folded silver out of the machine. It was hot, but clearly not hot enough to ruin the magic inside, like Erick had when he used [Incandescent Aura] to melt the previous bar of the good stuff. This stuff didn’t look too blue, though, but it was clearly not simple silver anymore.

“See here?” Grosgrena said, “It’s blueish. This is weak Deep Sky Silver.

“The original silver costs 50 gold, or 500 silver, and the original five kilos of normal silver were enough to make around 1000 silver coins, max, for most coins are made of trash metal that only has a bit of silver in them.

“Right now, this weak Deep Sky Silver is worth about 500 gold. Usable for shit enchanting work and assorted jewelry. If we were to continue this pounding process for about 32 hours straight, never stopping, and casting about 4 million mana worth of [Absorption Ward] into the process, then we’d get wrought-quality Deep Sky Silver. Now that stuff you can use to make some really nice shit, for such items are easily rechargeable via grand cores, or they’ll have extra charges, or whatever else general-purpose good thing you’re going for. Not my field of caring. But what I do care about is being able to tell the quality, and good, easily enchantable Deep Sky Silver will be as blue as a morning sky, but with a sheen of silver light to it.

“That good kind of Deep Sky Silver, in this quantity, is worth 5000 gold; 50,000 silver.

“Most people don’t go for the 32 hour creation of good Deep Sky Silver, though. It’s a lot easier to go slower, with an [Absorption Ward] cast by a Scion of Focus that will regenerate as fast as the pounder can utilize that regeneration. Faster regeneration of the spellwork is more important than size of the [Absorption Ward], because, for the most part, metal can only absorb so much magic so fast. A 500 point, million Regen [Ward] is more impressive than a million point, 500 Regen [Ward]; both will get you where you need to go, but the first one can be cast on a thousand machines for the same mana cost as one cast of the second. Slow and boundless is better than a massive initial investment.

“There’s a bunch of math involved in crushing metals and how much magic they can absorb in one crush, but a good rule of thumb is absorbing 25-100 mana per crush. More, if the metal is cold; less, if the metal is hot. Usually, the metal is hot from crushing, so there's a down curve as you get further and further in the crushing process, so you need to pull your [Strike]s to keep the imbuing going at a good rate.

“Down at the crushing rooms, we’ll usually set up so there’s a crush every 30 seconds, with an apprentice turning the metal as needed, with the caster of the [Ward] only coming in once a day to recast the spell when needed. Takes about a week to turn out a single 5 kilo block of Deep Sky Silver, and almost all of it is sold off to contracted parties for 5k a pop.” Grosgrena turned off the machine and set the block of crushed Deep Sky Silver to the side, asking, “Any questions?”

Erick had listened well, but he was unsure of one aspect of Grosgrena’s lesson. “Are all magical metals made magical in this way? What about froststeel? Adamantium?”

Grosgrena smirked. “Different and specific [Restful Ward]s are used to create specific magical metals out of specific starting metals. Mostly, the [Ward] is an elemental ward of some kind, and the metal is platinum. That’s a good 75% of all magical metals out there. Froststeel requires a lot of cold, so that’s hard to do, but we can get it done.” Grosgrena said, “A few notable exceptions are adamantium, as you say, and holyite. But the first is a secret and the second is something you’ll have to ask the gods about. It’s usually a Quest from a god to a follower to find holyite and craft it into an item, so I tend to stay out of that shit.”

“Okay. Fair enough.” Erick said, “I want to try platinum and [Prismatic Ward].”

Grosgrena smirked. “I thought you might.” She tapped a brilliantly white bar of metal sitting on the stone table. “That’s platinum. Let’s get to crushing!”

Erick smiled. He had an Ophiel expend himself as a [Prismatic Ward] across the crusher while he stuck the bar of platinum in the machine. Grosgrena turned it on, and it started crushing. With lightform precision and Domain power, Erick turned and held the platinum inside the cavity. Platinum screeched particularly loud as it deform—

Grosgrena cast a silencing spell, cutting off the screeches, as she said, “I used to love that sound when I was younger, but it grates sometimes when the [Ward] is strong enough. It appears your [Ward] qualifies.”

Erick smiled.

Grosgrena said, “We should have a tentative result soon, maybe four more minutes at this rate of crushing.”

Erick nodded, saying, “I heard you used [Metalshape] to do this process. I didn’t think it was actual physical crushing.”

“Hmm. Now that’s a topic.” Grosgrena said, “[Metalshape] will achieve weak versions of various magical metals, but only actual crushing and folding will achieve the strong stuff. If you’ve ever bought weak Deep Sky Silver, you probably got it from a source that used [Metalshape] to do their imbuing. We don’t sell that shi— Oh!” Grosgrena eyed the crusher the whole time, and now her eyes focused. “Looks a bit iridescent.”

Erick narrowed his eyes. “It’s not… Celesteel?”

“Close guess, but no. It has red notes. Celesteel has no red. I bet money that it’s prismsteel. Good for all elemental applications.”

“Oh. Well. Yeah. That would make sense, wouldn’t it.”

Grosgrena smirked. “Now, I’ve never used [Prismatic Ward] myself, but I reckon that if we added some titanium dust to the mix, then you’d get celesteel, for sure. Copper dust would get you hellite. That’s mostly just theory that I’ve read in some of the older books, though; no one around here has had [Prismatic Ward] in a long time. Now, neither of those outcomes would be well-made under your [Prismatic Ward], and you’d have to pound the platinum for ten times as long, but eventually, you’d get there. Pretty sure, anyway.” She said, “A much more efficient thing to do if you want celesteel is to make an [Exalted Restful Ward], then you could put plain platinum in the pounder and you’d end up with celesteel afterward.”

Erick’s thoughts caught on a snag. Something didn’t sit right with Grosgrena’s words. Erick asked, “If you used a proper [Exalted Restful Ward] then you would not have to add titanium dust to get celesteel?”

“Nope.” Grosgrena smiled, for she recognized why Erick was having trouble understanding what was happening here. She solved the puzzle for him, saying, “When you took apart those metals for us you solved the question of ‘how does this shit turn magical’, and in an unexpected way. Apparently, through this pounding process, and through the correct [Ward]s, parts of the platinum actually turns into titanium when you do this.”

“Uh.” Erick said, “So platinum actually…”

Changes atomic number? From 78 to 22? When under the effect of magic?

Okay.

Erick didn’t want to voice that theory, though, since it sounded crazy. Such an atomic action would release an absolutely vast amount of energy. Too much! It was difficult for Erick to actually wrap his head around exactly how much energy should be released in such an action.

Erick stared at the pounding pillars in front of him, his eyes going a bit wide.

Grosgrena wasn’t lying to him, either.

So.

Huh.

Well. There was a simple explanation. Magic existed. (Duh)

And apparently alchemy was real on Veird (also duh). And with those truths self-evident, there was probably a way to turn plain stone into gold.

Who the fuck needed [Duplicate], when Particle Magic was right there— Oh.

Oh.

This was a problem.

Like, sure. [Cleanse] turned matter into mana, and this was fine and understandable, so Erick had no problems with the E = MC^2 stuff and platinum becoming titanium after taking a moment to think about it.

But the creation of gold out of nothing but the sand in one’s backyard, or out of thick air, was a much larger problem.

But maybe this was fine? Actually? Platinum was rather damned high on the periodic table, but gold was even higher. Going lower in atomic number was obviously possible, but going upward on the p-table? No evidence that was possible, yet.

And if it was possible, then such a spell would have been censured already? Right?

There were only 7 particles that were higher on the p-table than gold, and also stable. And most people never got near that end of the Condense line of spellwork, anyway.

And [Condense Gold] was Particle Mage Only… So.

Erick relaxed. No one was making gold out of nothing. The economy was fine. Erick hadn’t fucked over the entire world in the exact same way that the Headmaster had specifically warned him against, back when he learned [Duplicate] from the Old Dragon.

And so, Erick finished his thought, saying, “Platinum can turn into other metals? Neat.”

Grosgrena said, “We haven’t had any luck going up the particle mountain, but going down is easy enough.”

Erick smiled at that, all the while using his lightform to turn the platinum as needed, to allow the pounder to crush it down, letting the [Prismatic Ward] soak into the shiny silver metal. All the while, the platinum was becoming more and more rainbow-y.

Erick and Grosgrena spoke of magic and metals, and of all the most useful types of [Restful Ward]s.

Eventually, the conversation moved on to how spellwork flowed through a runic formation. His conversation with Darabella about all of that had given Erick a good starting point, but it had been a short conversation; not nearly long enough. Apparently, ‘how runes chained’ was a pretty simple answer that Erick would have found out if he actually tried making a formation himself. The magic went into the network, and was spread between every single valid rune, affecting stuff around those runes based on the spells imbued into the runes.

And that was all there was to that.

At the end of the metallurgy lesson, Erick left with a newfound appreciation for metals, a book to read, and some runic experiments to undertake. It had been a fantastic day.

The evening was great, too, with another nice dinner with everyone at Hothalls, and with Jane trying the 13-star meal and vanquishing it like the conqueror she was. Few others had ever accomplished such a feat, and Erick was proud of his daughter. For such an accomplishment, the owner even came out of hiding. The recluse was supposedly devoted to creating ever stronger and stranger spice concoctions which were able to burn and entice only the most foolish or brave sorts of people. He congratulated Jane on her accomplishment, then vanished, back into hiding, but not before handing Jane a few bottles of his own special 12-star blends. Those bottles held the same spice/beauty product that would turn her hair red. Jane was thrilled.

And also barely keeping it together.

Back at their rooms, Jane kept saying she was ‘perfectly fine!’ and ‘stop worrying about me!’ and ‘It’s only some blood coming out of my ears, I’m still at 50% Health!’, but eventually, Erick convinced her to accept a [Cleanse]. Instant relief! Both for her, from the pain, and for Erick, for having to watch Jane hurt herself like that.

- - - -

Erick woke up.

Today, he’d go see Darabella about more rune carving. He’d learn more about joining runes and flowing power between them.

Tomorrow, he’d do more metal work. Maybe make a shield for himself that could hold [Animadversion]. Maybe he could even combine runes and multiple small shields so that he could control many at a time, expanding the thorny shield’s most protective and reflective parts out into a net that could cover half of his body, if needed.

The day after, would be the [Withering] of the town.

And the day after that would be a banquet in his honor, held up at the noble district.

And sprinkled throughout all of that, Erick would help secure the Reset of the lands Down Below.

And then…

Something would happen.

When was the shit going to hit the fan? It had to be coming, soon, right? This was too comfortable, so something had to happen to upset the whole apple cart. Though… sure, these people were scared of him and that might make something bad happen, but probably not. People mostly didn’t mess with others higher on the power scale than them. They just ran away; screaming optional and not recommended.

But something was going to happen before all that.

And when it did…

Well.

If Erick was being honest with himself there were two outcomes to his stay in Enduring Forge. Both were… ‘bad’, in a sense.

Either the shit would hit the fan, which was option one. Or there was option two: which was a different sort of call to end his Worldly Path. Erick could easily see himself staying here, in Enduring Forge, long term. And plus! Linxel wasn’t too far away.

Enduring Forge and its people were wonderful.