Path of Dragons

Book 1: Chapter 35: The First Step

Carmen stood in front of her forge, staring at the flames. She had built the thing herself, and to exacting specifications. However, she knew just how much room there was for improvement. Still, as she walked around it and inspected the brickwork, she was more than happy with the results.

The forge itself was a little more than waist high, made of thick bricks she’d made herself using a local clay deposit she’d found near the lake. The process hadn’t been as onerous as she’d expected, and it had been made even simpler via copious use of her archetype techniques. Idly, she inspected her technique list:

Her techniques were mostly self-explanatory, though a few bucked that trend. Specifically, Ethereal Infusion, Minor Enchantment, and Minor Embellishment had required a little experimentation. Now, though, she felt confident that she understood them well enough to attempt something special.

And perhaps she would gain a level as well, which would be quite a feat. As a Blacksmith, she didn’t gain experience like the people with combat classes. Instead, her progression was predictably rooted in crafting. However, she couldn’t simply make the same things over and over again. If she took that route, any progress would take forever. No – if she wanted to keep pace with powerful combatants like Alyssa, she had to continuously create new and unique items.

Which wasn’t such an onerous task, considering that was the entire reason she’d taken the Tradesman archetype to begin with. For her whole life, Carmen had been fascinated with the idea of making things with her own two hands, which was why she’d chosen to pursue her post-graduate work specializing in primitive skills. And while she’d only had a very basic interest in smithing, when the Blacksmith class became available, it had felt like the best choice.

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In any case, it gave her the opportunity to help without putting herself at personal risk. It wasn’t that she was a coward. She would fight if she needed to. But with Miguel depending on her, throwing herself into battle just wasn’t a viable option. One parent taking that path was bad enough – and worry for Alyssa often kept her awake at night – but two was infinitely worse. God forbid Alyssa was killed, but if it happened, Carmen had a responsibility to continue on without her, if only for Miguel’s sake.

Besides, there was an argument to be made that, without the settlement’s crafters, no one would have survived. Primitive though their situation was, at least they had shelter and equipment. Without those two things, few would have made it.

Now, though, Carmen wanted to do something more than build a log cabin or craft a mundane iron weapon. Instead, she wanted to make something special.

To that end, she gathered an old leaf spring she’d taken from one of the now-useless cars in town. Though it was rusty, it was still good steel, which was what she needed for the project she had in mind. She thrust it into the forge, then worked the attached bellows as she waited for the metal to heat to the proper temperature.

Slowly, the color changed. Starting at light yellow, it grew darker, progressing through a series of purples and blues on its way to a dark grey. That grey took on a red tint that gradually took over. When the metal became bright red, she knew it was ready to be manipulated. Using a pair of tongs, Carmen yanked it out of the forge, then placed the cherry red bar of steel on her anvil.

She used Summon Tool, and an unadorned blacksmithing hammer weighing about four pounds appeared in her hand. It was a little on the heavier side for what she needed, but with her inflated Strength, it felt almost too light. Still, when the heavy head fell on the bar of steel, the metal moved.

Over and over, she hammered against the steel until she saw the color fading back to grey. When it did, she thrust the bar back into the forge and repeated the process. Gradually, the bar of steel took on the shape of a tapered, double-edged blade about a foot in length.

Once Carmen had hammered out the basic form, she dismissed the blacksmithing hammer, only to use Summon Tool again. This time, she came up with a much lighter hammer. It took a bit of concentration to make such a change, but she’d mastered it soon after receiving the technique. Thus armed, she started working on the profile of the blade, hammering it into a sloped surface that would eventually become a sharp edge.

Before the world’s transformation, she would have done things slightly differently. But because of her techniques, Carmen could skip some steps – like building in a socket for the shaft she intended to attach. So, while the forging itself was slightly easier, the fact that she had to continuously use Ethereal Infusion, constantly bathing the piece in Ethera, made up for the decreased difficulty.

Gradually, the spearhead took shape. If she’d only wanted to hammer out something that would meet the basic standard of effectiveness, she could have been finished in less than an hour. However, because she wanted to create something at the height of her abilities, she was forced to take her time.

She fell into a rhythm. Hammering until the metal cooled, thrusting it back into the forge, working the bellows until it got hot enough to move, then repeating the process. Over and over until, at last, she was satisfied with the shape.

Then, Carmen got down to grinding.

She would have preferred a belt sander, but due to the lack of availability – and the fact that she hadn’t had time to build one – Carmen was forced to do it the old-fashioned way. That meant repeatedly dragging the blade along the surface of a whetstone until the shape of the weapon was refined to her tastes.

That took even longer than the forging process, but with Ethereal Infusion coursing through her, she fell into something akin to a meditative state. Hours passed, and the sun eventually set, but she kept going by the light of the moon. Each pass along the whetstone took the tiniest portion of metal with it until, just before dawn, she had achieved perfection.

She looked up. The forge was still burning, but she didn’t remember adding extra fuel. No one else was around, so she figured that she must’ve done it without thinking.

In any case, the blade was finished – except for the heat treat, but that would come later. For now, she needed to work on the haft.

For that, Carmen had chosen hickory she’d gathered from the local forest. But she wasn’t just going to jam the two pieces together and call it a day. Instead, like she’d done with the steel, she’d used her Decontaminate and Refine Material techniques to purify and enhance the wood. As a result, it was a good deal more durable than it would’ve otherwise been. After that, she used a combination of Fracture and basic whittling skills to shape the raw limb.

In the end, she came up with a six-foot long shaft that was about three-quarters of an inch wide. If the wood wasn’t so durable, she would’ve gone slightly thicker, but because of her techniques, Carmen felt confident that it would survive just about any impact.

And she had plans to enhance it further.

Once the shaft was finished, Carmen set about heat treating the blade. Normally, she would have preferred to use oil for the quench, but it wasn’t as if she could run down to the local big box store and buy a drum of quenching oil, so she was forced to use water. Which was dangerous because it would cool the metal very quickly, and if there were any flaws in the blade, it stood the risk of shattering.

But Carmen had prepared as well as she could, so she could only hope it was enough.

With that in mind, she shoved the spearhead back into the forge, waited for it to reach critical temperature, then removed it. The moment it was out of the forge, she thrust it into a barrel of water she’d prepared.

Steam billowed, but because of her Resist Fire ability, Carmen was unaffected. Regardless, she was too focused on what she heard to pay any attention to the steam. She listened, but when she heard no cracking sounds, she let out a sigh of relief. Still, after the blade had cooled, she inspected it closely, looking for any flaws.

There were none.

So, she was free to move on to the next step, which involved shoving the two pieces together, then using Bond to meld them into one piece. If they were comprised of the same materials, it would have been simple. However, because the shaft was wood and the blade was high-carbon steel, it was a bit trickier.

Still, Carmen had spent quite some time preparing for just that problem by melding a wide variety of materials together. The trick was focus and patience. If she tried to do it all at once, just using the Bond technique without any direction, it would fail. But so long as she took her time, slowly guiding the two disparate materials into merging, it would create a seamless transition that was stronger than either of the individual materials.

With well-practiced resolve, she did just that, directing tiny tendrils of metal and wood into a series of microscopic braids. She couldn’t see them, but so long as she maintained her focus, she could feel them. At the same time, she never let Ethereal Infusion drop, which added some degree of difficulty, but would create much better results.

In the end, it took another four or five hours before she finished the process. Once it was done, she sagged in exhaustion, both mental and physical. But she was only getting started. Sure, the spear was fine as it was. It would do the job. Yet it required two more steps before she could call it complete.

First, though, Carmen needed some rest. She’d been at it for almost an entire day straight, and though her endurance was augmented by Crafter’s Stamina, it could only do so much. So, she stashed the spear in a corner and headed home to eat and sleep. Fortunately, Alyssa had taken Miguel out into the wilderness, where she was teaching him the lessons her father had taught her. Hunting, fishing, tracking – all sorts of wilderness survival skills that were even more important now than they had been when she’d learned them.

Her meal wasn’t terribly satisfying. Just a hunk of bread, a few berries Alyssa had gathered, and some dried meat. Normally, she would have taken the meal in one of the communal dining halls, but that would have come with a host of social obligations she had no time to meet. So, she suffered through her meal, then washed off as best she could before going to bed.

Sleep came fast and ended even more quickly, and soon enough she was back at the forge. Technically, she could have finished everything at the cabin, but she had no intention of taking her work home.

Sitting near the forge, she held the spear across her lap. After spending quite some time inspecting it for any flaws she might have missed, she decided that its quality was good enough to take the next step. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best she could do.

For now.

She felt positive that, one day, she could make something far more impressive. After all, the crafting guides Alyssa had bought from the Branch of the World Tree suggested the existence of rare, powerful materials. And she knew her journey as a crafter had only just begun.

No – there were many powerful items in her future. But every journey began with a single step, and her path as a blacksmith started with a single spear.

So, with that in mind, she took the next step.

Using a small knife, she started to carve. As she did, she kept two techniques active. The first, as always, was Ethereal Infusion, which bathed the entire weapon in Ethera. The second was Minor Embellishment, which had two requirements to activate. The first was to simply embrace the technique, using it the same way she used any other. The second requirement was to create some sort of flourish in her crafted product.

According to the crafting guides, it could be something as simple as embedding a jewel into a tiara, but it hinted that the more appropriate the embellishment was to the item, the more it would boost the eventual quality of the end result. However, the guide acknowledged that there was some debate on the subject as well, and it said that some crafters had posited that the appropriateness of the embellishment was subject to the crafter’s opinion. In short, if she thought it fit, then that was all that mattered.

Carmen wasn’t sure about that, but it really wasn’t all that important, either. She’d known from the very beginning what form the embellishment would take. So, she got to work, carving the shaft with fanciful designs that resembled Renaissance ornaments. But she didn’t stop there, instead continuing onto the spearhead with an engraving tool.

Once she’d finished, Carmen set it on a nearby rack, then stepped back. From a distance, the designs weren’t even visible. However, once someone drew close enough, they would see just how elaborate they were.

It was perfect.

But it wasn’t done.

There were still two more steps. Both were important, but one was far more critical than the other. So, Carmen chose to take care of that one – the Minor Enchantment – first. On the surface, it didn’t seem all that difficult. All she had to do was carve the appropriate symbol into the surface of the weapon while channeling the technique. However, her tests had told her that it was far from simple, and she knew it would require every ounce of her concentration to get it right.

So, Carmen took another break, got some food, and even walked around the settlement for a bit. Once her head was clear, she returned to the forge, placed the spear across her lap, and got to work.

She’d left a small ring of virgin territory in the center of the spearhead, and she targeted that space with her engraving tool. As she did so, Carmen used Minor Enchantment. From experience, she knew it would only make the weapon more durable – a minor effect, just as the name implied – but it was worth it. The last thing she wanted was for the spear to snap at the wrong time, after all. So, Carmen put her all into it, doing her best to regulate the Ethera flowing through her so that she wouldn’t overload the would-be enchantment.

It was no easy task, but she’d practiced enough that she managed it all the same. And then, after a few strokes of her engraving tool, she was finished.

Now, all she needed to do was sharpen the blade and seal the wooden haft with wax.

She took her time, partially because the tasks required it. But mostly, she was loathe to finish the weapon. What if it didn’t prove to be worth the trouble? What if it was just another spear? After everything she’d done, it was still made from mundane materials, after all. But part of her reticence was also because, despite the amount of effort it had taken, she had very much enjoyed the process.

There was something about the act of creating something from nothing that had always appealed to her, and the addition of magic – or Ethera, she supposed – just made it that much more impactful.

But still, she put the finishing touches on it, and just like that, the project was done. It was the product of three days of work and countless hours of practice. She’d arduously gathered the best materials she could, and she’d used every ability at her disposal. Looking back on the process, Carmen didn’t think she could have done anything differently.

So, it was with some sense of satisfaction that she used Tradesman’s Appraisal:

Carmen pumped her fist in celebration, letting out a whoop of excitement. Then, she did an awkward, little dance. And as far as she was concerned, her celebration was well warranted. Until that moment, the best item she’d managed to craft had still never exceeded an unranked overall grade. That she’d stepped up to the next level was an enormous achievement.

Calling something crude wasn’t really flattering, but it represented the first step of magical equipment. According to everything she’d read, it was an enormous leap forward in terms of effectiveness, and even though the Spear of the Dragon Lancer wouldn’t have any fanciful magical powers, it would be nearly unbreakable and would feature a minor self-repair function.

In short, it was everything she’d hoped to achieve.

But having taken that first step, she couldn’t help but look forward to the next. Sure, she’d made a crude magical item, and that was great. Better than great, really. But what would an item with a simple grade look like? Or a complex one?

Before, those goals had seemed almost unreachable. However, now that she’d taken the first step, those heights seemed much more attainable.