Dragon Sorcerer 1- Chapter 32 (Patreon)

Chapter 32- Unlikely Alliances

The dwarf stared at me while stroking his beard. “The names Daggin. My grandpappy people always have the saying ‘never make deals with dragons,’ but I suppose I can manage a deal with two student mages.”

There was something about making a deal which got my blood pumping. I look to Cami, “Are you up for this too?”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Just trust me.” The expression on her face was a little odd, but our bond assured me that she was willing to give me a little room to work.

I looked back at Daggin. “I need to know a few things before I make my proposal.”

When the half-dwarf didn’t respond, I continued. “What makes cold steel different from just steel?”

“What do I look like, some professor at your fancy university? Now you want a lesson on metallurgy?”

“No, just a simple question to make sure I’ve got it right.”

He shook his head in clear annoyance, but something about the situation must have made him more curious than annoyed. “Cold steel is just the term we have for a different type of metal we find. Steel is actually made from iron, but to simplify things, we have to add coal to it and properly treat the metal. Cold steel comes out of the ground as a different ore and the biggest problem with it is the same as mithril, elementium, adamantium, or any of the other rare ores.”

I nodded. “Purity.”

He squinted at me. “Okay, so maybe you aren’t just some stupid student who thinks their special cause they're going to a university.”

“Never been there yet, but I do know a thing or two about metal. It is just knowledge though, not any actual experience working with it. But if purity is the problem, then I think I have a solution.”

“Well, don’t keep me waiting,” Daggin said, “I’m all ears.”

I blinked twice. His expression caught me off guard. His ears were actually rather on the small side, but then I realized it must just be something that humans say. “It’d be easier to show you than to tell you. Do you have any cold steel ore I can work with?”

“I’m not about to let you touch any of the good stuff, but I have some cast offs from the smelter, which I wasn’t able to use. The process only recovers about ninety percent of the cold steel, the rest of it is just too contaminated with other materials.”

“Great, so show me.”

He nodded and then led us around the back of his small shop, grumbling the entire time. He pointed at a barrel that was filled to waist high with metal and rock. It had obviously been heated and then allowed to solidify again. “When I came here, I had an entire wagon full of ore. Now, I’ve used most of it up trying to make a name for myself. Pretty much all I have left to work with is regular iron. Ain’t good for much other than mundane items or weapons for the town guard, as if they’d buy from an unlicensed black-smith.”

I ignored him. Like all humans, half-dwarf or not, he talked too much. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that all the words were crammed into their tiny heads and had to escape or the pressure built up. I smiled at the idea of their heads just randomly exploding. Then I thought about how much more Lisella spoke than some of the others and wondered if how long their hair was had something to do with it. She sure could talk more than anyone I’d ever met. Then again, my experience was fairly limited.

I put my hand on the barrel of smelted waste product and willed this to work as I intended. I cast Fabricate and pictured ingots of pure cold steel. The spell seemed to struggle for a moment, but I wouldn’t relent. My will was firm, and I forced the magic to take the remains of cold steel and only cold steel out of the barrel.

Little by little, the particles of cold steel pulled themselves out. Fabricate could make most anything I could imagine as long as it was non-organic and within the size limits. This shouldn’t be any different. It was just that I was trying to force absolute purity. One ingot was formed in the air before it fell to the ground.

Daggin muttered, “Holy Hepha, goddess of crafts.”

I had to trigger Fabricate a second time and felt the strain on my ability. It technically wasn’t a spell but rather a racial ability which I had awoken. Each color of dragons has things they are good at. There might be some overlap, but no two dragon types have the exact same set. Blue dragons tend to specialize in things related to the desert and water, which are contrasts, of course. Then we also have a knack for what some might think of as illusion, but which is really phantasms.

The difference being that our illusions can take on actual physical properties. If I had to guess, I would assume this was why Fabricate was within the range of abilities that a blue dragon could manifest as part of their heritage. If I’d had the mental energy at the moment, I might have wondered why the DKP cost for it had been so low, but it was taking all of my focus to create ingots of cold steel. That was a stupid name, I realized, but almost lost my hold on the ability, so I blocked everything else out.

A few seconds later, another ingot fell next to the first one. It was becoming harder by the moment to pull out any more cold steel. I began to think that it was all gone when suddenly the ability stopped working as a partial ingot, maybe a third the size of the others fell to the ground. I tried to activate it once more, but there was no more cold steel in the barrel for me to work with.

I took a deep breath to gather my bearings and then bared my teeth in a large grin at the flabbergasted blacksmith. “That’s all of it.”

Daggin took a moment to find his tongue, but then he said, “How? No… no, never mind. We can talk about that in a minute. Give me a second.”

Then he began casting a spell. I paid attention to the form of the spell and found that it was fairly low level, or at least it wasn’t complex enough to be beyond my reach. I also got the sense that it wasn’t really part of my strong suit as far as magic went, but I could still cast it. Thinking about that made me realize that it had been easier to learn Lesser Regeneration than Identify despite the one being a higher tier. I supposed that had to do with the pursuits which came most naturally to me, as evidenced by the images in the testing orb.

You may choose to add the spell Metal Assessment to your Tier 1 Innate Spells. Do you wish to do so? Note: You may only ever know six Tier 1 Innate Spells, and while it is possible to change them out later, it will cost you DKP to do so. Currently, 2 of your 6 Tier 1 slots are full.

I quickly rejected that option. The spell might be useful, but I didn’t want to clog up my limited number of slots with divination type magic. I could always just hire a servant to assess metal for me. Truthfully, I had a nose for quality to begin with, so I wasn’t overly worried about it.

Daggin was shaking his head. “I cast the spell twice just to be sure. This is 100% pure.”

“Of course, what else did you expect?”

“I told you that we can never get all of the cold steel out of the ore samples, but we can also never get all of the impurities out of the cold steel. Typically, it is 90 to 95% pure if a skilled smith makes it.”

Cami asked, “Is the extra few percent that important?”

I wanted to growl at her. She should never minimize what we had to offer. That was undercutting our own bargaining position. I managed to keep it in, though. It wouldn’t do to show any dissension between us.

Daggin took the question as an opportunity to provide instruction. “That is a common misunderstanding. In the hands of a talented smith, every percent of purity matters. It makes the weapon better able to hold enchantments and allows for more spontaneous boosts.”

“Spontaneous boosts?” I asked.

“Yes, when a skilled enough smith is working with the metal and it is one which possesses a degree of inherent magic, there is a small chance for a boost to something like the durability or sharpness of the weapon. You’ll never spontaneously make a flaming sword or anything like that, but you can boost the natural aspects of the weapon.”

“Ah, that makes sense I suppose, but what I don’t get is how you use magic if you never attended the university.”

Daggin tilted his head back and laughed. “Now that was you just assuming things. I never said I didn’t spend some time with those stuffy robes. I just said I had no use for the place. I spent the least amount of time possible and then left. I don’t exactly have a great gift or anything. A bit of aptitude for fire and metal.”

“So, are you interested in making a deal?”

He nodded but then said, “What I am most curious about is how a student who is allegedly on their way to the university for the first time is casting magic of a tier that I can only guess at. That spell must have been quite powerful to not only pull the particles of metal out of that mess but then to form flawless ingots…” His voice drifted off and I simply smiled.

“We all have secrets. Besides, maybe we just have powerful mentors.”

“That might explain you having good gear and things like that, but it doesn’t explain personal power. Magic can’t be gifted it has to be studied and then mastered. If I hadn’t seen you use two spells, which I can’t explain, I would have thought you were some kid fresh off the farm because you act like everything you see around you is brand new. Not that the girl is much better than you.”

I ignored the implications of what he said. “But are you interested in making a deal with us?”

“Depends on what you have in mind?”

“Come with us to Urgoi.”

He burst out laughing again. “What in the nine hells would prompt me to do that?”

I shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “Simple. You said you are on the verge of losing everything here. I’ll help you condense everything down and then you can just travel with us. You’ll be safe, as our mentors really are quite strong. They also have some pull, so we’ll get them to help you set up shop in Urgoi. They’ll obviously want to see a sample of your work.”

“And what’s in it for you?”

“Two things. I’ll help you purify your metal and in turn you’ll be able to craft better weapons. You’ll sell us what we need at a discount, and cut me in for a small share of the profit you make from having the such pure metals to work with. Oh, and you’ll let Cami apprentice with you. She has the pursuit of elemental fire, so she should be able to learn.”

“Wait, what?” Cami asked, but I ignored her. I was in full negotiation mode and while Cami might be more than a servant, it wasn’t hard for me to slip back into thinking of her like that. I held up my hand for her to be quiet.

The half-dwarf was shaking his head. “There is just so much wrong with that. You’re speaking like you can make your mentors do as you wish. For those who had mentors when I was at the academy, it was the other way around.”

“Leave that to me.”

“Okay, then there is the fact, you just up and told me what the girl’s pursuit was. That just isn’t done at the academy or not most of the time. Either people keep it as closely guarded secrets or they go around boasting. The latter time are either fools or the ones who are so gifted that people knowing the pursuits won’t matter. Not that the students won’t eventually figure out what their competition has, even if they can’t be completely sure.”

“You paint an image of a place where everyone is fighting to survive.”

“I wouldn’t put it in those words, but they are all definitely trying to claw their way to the top of the heap,” Daggin said.

I smiled again. “Now I’m even more interested in going there.”

He shook his head. Then we got down to some serious negotiating. We went back and forth about percents but in the end because he was having to uproot everything and because he was going to agree to train Cami, we settled on a 10% of the profits coming to me since I would be providing him top notch supplies and he would create gear for us at cost.

I was greatly satisfied with the results, but one thing tainted my elation. Cami felt very frustrated. We left the shop with a dagger for each of us, that spear I had identified for Cami. I picked it because the range would be good for her. I didn’t want her to have to be a frontline fighter. And, of course, I had selected a mace for myself. It’s durability was boosted, and that type of weapon would be ideal given my strength.

When we got a block away heading back to the inn, Cami asked in a voice with a deadly tone that sent a shiver down my spine, “So are you going to make all my decisions for me, dad?”