B3C32 - Stretched Thin (Patreon)

“You have to hone your concentration further.”

“I’m sorry, I struggle to maintain my focus for long periods of time.”

Tyron compared the scripting he’d had his apprentice, Flynn, complete over the past five hours. As time stretched on, they grew progressively worse, small errors creeping in by the three hour mark.

“It’s something you must improve at if you want to be able to work in this field as a Master of the craft,” he told him. “Being able to produce flawless sigils, hour after hour, is the hallmark of the trade.”

“I’m sorry.”

Flynn hung his head in shame but Tyron just tapped him on the shoulder so he would look up again.

“It’s not an insurmountable problem. Most apprentices struggle with this. Too many focus on trying to produce a flawless enchantment, and then stop once they’ve succeeded. It isn’t enough to create work without errors, you have to be able to do nine times out of ten for eight hours at a time. The level of mastery is completely different.”

“So… what should I do? To improve, I mean.”

His Master pulled open a draw filled with cores.

“Practice. Have a routine to sharpen your focus and shake off distractions you use before working on a core. Don’t accept anything less than a perfect result. Then repeat until you can’t do it anymore. If you continue to repeat this practice, your endurance and precision will increase.”

“If you’ll forgive me, Master Almsfield, when should I do this? I don’t want to interfere in the normal running of the shop.”

Tyron almost responded with ‘skip sleep and do it at night’, but closed his mouth at the last possible moment. Flynn wasn’t like him and, like most people, lacked his nocturnal habits and obsessive drive. He considered the question.

“I’ll give you two days off per week for the next few months so you can devote them to improving your Skills and focus. You can have free use of the store’s supply of cores as well. Only the chips, of course.”

Chips referred to the lowest grade of cores, not even large enough to form a full sphere inside their monstrous host. Instead, they were a shard, a sliver of crystal that could be difficult to work with, along with having poor power absorption.

They were readily abundant, found in the smallest and most common types of kin, but had little use in traditional enchanting. Most of the time, they’d be used as a reagent in alchemical mixtures or fused together to create a crude form of Mage Candy.

Flynns face fell when he learned he’d have to work with the difficult gems and Tyron relented enough to tell him why.

“Working with chips forces you to be extra precise with your sigil-work and spacing. If you don’t concentrate on applying your knowledge and skills, then it won’t work. Too many apprentices get comfortable and lazy, performing the basic enchantments by rote, without considering the implications.”

The irregular surface of the chips meant that even if you were applying the same enchantment to ten of them, you would have to adjust it ten times to fit each specific one.

Despite the difficulty of the task, Flynn’s expression firmed and he resolved himself to the work.

“Thank you for the extra lessons lately, Master Almsfield. I know how busy you are.”

Tyron scratched at his cheek, feeling slightly guilty.

“Yes, there’s been a lot to do, and I'll be leaving for a trip in a few months, but while we have time, I’ll do what I can to help. You’ve been a good apprentice and I don’t want you to feel neglected.”

At this unexpected praise from his young teacher, Flynn smiled happily.

“However, I would appreciate it if you stopped flirting with my clerk in front of the customers.”

“Sorry!”

~~~~

“What’s a sword, anyway? At what point does it qualify as a sword?” Tyron threw the sharpened bone he’d been working on to the stone floor of his study.

“You are asking the wrong fucking guy,” Dove replied, bending down to pick it up and swishing it through the air a few times. “Seems fine to me. It’s got some heft, seems to cut, the edge appears to be sharp. What else do you want?”

The Necromancer threw his hands into the air and paced back and forth.

“I’m never going to learn the sword crafting Skill now, so I’ll never know if I’ve actually achieved a satisfactory level in the eyes of the Unseen.”

“Which means you won’t know when you’ve actually succeeded,” Dove mused, understanding. “This is only a problem from moronic perfectionists like you. In all likelihood, you succeeded weeks ago. How many hundreds of these stupid things are you going to make?!”

“I’ll keep going until I’m satisfied!” Tyron snapped back.

The walls were covered in notes, diagrams, excerpts from texts and a dozen metal blades leaned against the stone slabs around the room. There were swords of all sorts, falchions, rapiers, short swords, long swords, even a two-handed bastard sword.

“Will you ever be satisfied?” Dove asked sceptically. “Until you produce a masterwork blade and get a mystery or something, you’ll never stop. If it’s made from bone, can cut and stab, do you really need to give a shit beyond that?”

To demonstrate, the former Summoner executed some clumsy thrusts and parries, whipping the sword through the air and enjoying the satisfying swoosh sound it made. He was so bad even Tyron could point out the flaws in his technique.

“I was satisfied with my progress on the spears and shields,” he defended himself. He was not some obsessive maniac who didn’t know when to quit!

Dove laughed sarcastically.

“Those are spears and shields,” he mocked. “All you had to do for a spear was make a pointy bit you could attach to the end of a stick! There’s a reason they’re considered the poor person’s weapon. As for the shield, as soon as you made something you could hit without it breaking, you’d done your job. Swords are a different matter. I’ve seen Swordsmen who literally slept with theirs, the kinky fuckers. They have to have the right weight. They have to have a cutting edge and sharp tip. They need to be perfectly balanced. The shape needs to be right. The curve of the blade, if there is one. There’s a million different ways to make the fucking things, and each has its own merits. People get obsessed with finding the perfect one and the amount of money Slayers will spend to get a hold of their dream blade is absurd.”

Tyron found it difficult to relate to them. His father, the most renowned Swordsman in the province, perhaps ever, hadn’t given a shit when it came to his weapons. He collected them, in a sense, but he’d only had one requirement when it came to the blade he bore into combat.

“As long as it doesn’t break when I swing it, I’m happy,” he would laugh, weighing a blade in his hand. “When you get to my Level, that’s a tall order, most swords shatter. Keep the fancy enchanting rubbish away from me, it just gets in the way.”

Magnin had favoured simple longswords that allowed for a two-handed grip, giving him flexibility to swing with extra power when he wanted to. Straightforward in design and make, all he’d had to worry about was finding materials strong enough to withstand him and a smith capable of forging them.

If it was good enough for Magnin Steelarm, it was good enough for Tyron. He stood up and grabbed hold of a new set of femurs, infusing them with Death Magick the moment he touched them. With a determined expression, he began to fuse and mould the bones, as familiar now with the basic components of a sword as a smith.

He moulded the fuller, hardened the edge to the limit of his ability, then did the same for the point. He used a shoulder blade, or scapula, to create the hilt as a separate piece.

Modifications were necessary, of course. A traditional longsword was a flexible and versatile weapon, but would be difficult for his skeletons to wield shoulder to shoulder, so he shortened it a hand. This was probably a good idea anyway. To properly create a bone-weapon that long, he would have needed to include even more raw material, cutting into his dwindling supply.

When it was done, he took the blade and connected it to the hilt, checking the grip before he tried a few test swipes. The balance was good, which surprised him, that was where he failed the most often.

“Looks good,” Dove complemented his work, stepping closer to inspect the blade. “Let’s assume that this design is good enough. Practice it a few more times and then can we please move on with our fucking lives?”

~~~

Tyron stretched his back, groaning. Nearby, wiping down the display cases, Cerry chuckled at his display.

“You sound like an old man, Master Almsfield. My grandfather does exactly the same thing at the end of a day.”

“I am old,” he told her seriously, “old in spirit. Now my body is finally catching up.”

“I think you’ve just been working too hard,” she chided him, then pouted. “Even Flynn has been locked up in the workshop the last few days. You two are going to fall over dead at this rate.”

“Apprentice Rivner is working hard to succeed in his lessons so he can graduate and become a full Arcanist. There will be time for your dates when he’s done,” Tyron chided her, causing the girl to flush.

“Oh! I didn’t mean anything by it!” she protested, but he just waved her off.

“Back to cleaning. He’ll be down soon enough.”

Chastised, she went back to polishing the glass display cases until they gleamed, the various products nestled on their cushions within, labelled with a note written in flawless calligraphy. Those notes had cost a small fortune, Tyron recalled. Those who had truly mastered the art of decorative writing were few and charged well for their services. It was worth it, though; each letter was like a painting, drawing the eye.

The past few weeks, Tyron had been working himself ruthlessly hard, ensuring the store was well managed and supplied as business continued to grow, along with his nocturnal production work. Minions didn’t create themselves after all, and Filetta had delivered on his request. For the next while, he could expect regular deliveries of remains, and he had a lot of work to do to get one batch out the door before the next arrived.

As dusk fell, there was little business in the shop, which meant he was a touch surprised when the bell rang over the door. He turned to the entrance to see someone he hadn’t expected.

Cerry flinched and shifted herself to another cabinet away from the door as the heavily robed and cowled form he recognised as Shadda entered the shop.

He gestured to Wansa to put her weapon away as he stepped forward.

“Greetings. It’s been some time.”

The Dust Folk shuffled into the store, face hidden.

“Human, Shadda has returned, yes. My tribe is happy with what you sold. Much praise for Shadda. Some for you. A little. And so cheap! A little knowledge, this is easy, yes?”

Tyron blinked. Obviously, his work had gone over well in the desert. That was comforting to know.

“Let’s go into the back room to talk.”

“We escape the prying eyes. I learn.”

“Ah. Good.”

Soon they were seated and the Dust Folk was eager to get down to business.

“The moisture condensers, they work so well, on so little magick. My Graal, my… leader?”

“Chief?”

“Is close, yes. My chief is very pleased. We want more, twice as much as last time.”

“The same terms as last time, then?” Tyron enquired. “What you procured for me was very interesting and I would love to learn more.”

“Chan’rela, of course. Shadda has come prepared.”

From within the robes emerged a slim, bound volume, possibly only a few dozen pages. Tyron seized it eagerly.

“Two days,” he assured Shadda, “come back in two days and I’ll have everything you need.”