Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 193-194 (Patreon)

Still getting cooked out here, this sickness will not faking leave me alone

EDIT: Messed up and only uploaded ch194. Added in Ch193

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Arwin held up the efforts of the last two hours of work — a pair of Ivorin and Brightsteel gauntlets, spiked at the fingertips. The white gemstone had been inlaid in one gauntlet, the wyrm tooth in the other.

Even though they weren’t in the same piece of equipment, the Mesh saw handwear as a single item, so Arwin hadn’t seen any reason why that wouldn’t work.

Ivory Brightsteel Gauntlets: Rare Quality

[Broken Weeping Ravager]: This item longs to rip power from its fallen foes, but the powers it desires lie beyond its reach. It can both rip and swallow, but it cannot maintain.

Arwin’s fingers drummed on the table as he studied the gauntlets. Something had obviously gone wrong. The Mesh had acknowledged that both the claw and the white gem were hypothetically capable of doing what he wanted, but the gauntlet had still failed.

Not only was the trait wrong, but it didn’t look like the metal had imparted any of its own desires on the gauntlets as well. While he didn’t mind having more control over the result, normally there was at least something from the metal.

There was a possibility the flaw was in the combination of Brightsteel and Ivorin itself. But, if that were the case, then it would be impossible to make the gauntlets of the Ivory Executioner Set.

Maybe the set doesn’t have gauntlets? But that wouldn’t make sense. It’s clearly a large set. I’ve got a helm, greaves, and chestpiece already. There’s no way this isn’t a six item set. Gauntlets have to be part of it. So what did I do wrong? My intent?

That didn’t seem likely either. The intent clearly showed through in the item description. It was trying to become what he wanted. There was something else missing. The problem was figuring out what.

Arwin blew out a breath and set the pair of gauntlets into his Soul Flame together with a Brightsteel bracelet, transferring the trait over and adding the bracelet to his collection. He then removed the gemstone and Wyrmling tooth from the gauntlets. He hammered them out and set them to the side — the metal was mixed now, so he’d have to use it for a different purpose.

“If I assume that both the tooth and the gemstone are functional, then that only leaves my intent and the actual metal I used,” Arwin mused to himself. He ran a finger along the flat edge of the Wyrmling tooth, then turned it over in his hand. “Brightsteel and Ivorin have both worked for the rest of the items. Even if the gauntlets aren’t part of the Ivory Executioner set, I refuse to believe I can’t make this trait. It’s clearly possible.”

Arwin shook his head and stepped away from his [Soul Flame] to start pacing around his smithy. It wasn’t that making Ivory Executioner gauntlets was impossible. He was just missing something.

Right. What are the possible components that go into any item? There’s the metal, the monster parts, and the intent. Three things. Simple. The monster parts are almost certainly correct — or if not correct, viable. I should be able to make something that functions with them, even if it isn’t exactly my goal.

Intent had been addressed as well. The fact he’d made gauntlets that tried to rip energy and store it proved that. So, unless there was another variable he was looking over, that only left the metal.

Arwin walked over to the Ivorin and picked up an unworked bar. It definitely felt like Ivorin. Madiv hadn’t inadvertently given him a fake. The Brightsteel was no different. They were authentic.

A flicker of frustration rolled through Arwin’s stomach and his jaw clenched.

“I don’t get it,” Arwin muttered. “Why the hell won’t this shit work?”

There was a faint tingle at the nape of his neck, almost as if the Mesh was laughing at him. That — or it was about to offer him another challenge. Arwin’s eyes narrowed.

“Hell no. I can figure this out on my own. I don’t need you to hold my damn hand through everything. Get lost.”

The tingle faded.

He blew out a breath and forced himself to relax. Getting pissed off wasn’t going to help him out. Arwin stepped out of the smithy and headed over to the tavern, where Lillia was at work in the kitchen.

She had a large piece of Wyrmling meat cut into ribbons on a board before her and was studying it intently, her tongue protruding slightly from her mouth. Arwin waited patiently at the side of the kitchen for nearly a minute before Lillia noticed him and nearly jumped out of her shoes.

“Oh, Arwin! I didn’t realize you were here,” Lillia said. “You should have said something.”

“You looked busy. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“It’s fine. I was just trying to figure out what the best way to marinate meat was,” Lillia said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out a problem, so I figured an outside perspective might be useful,” Arwin admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.

“I can certainly try. What is it?”

“I’m trying to make the gauntlets of my Ivory Executioner set, but to do that, I need to use two different monster parts. One for each task the gloves have to do. The problem is they won’t seem to work together. The Mesh has acknowledged that the components should hypothetically work, but the gauntlets don’t function.”

Lillia took a step back from the meat and sucked on the insides of her cheeks as she thought for a few seconds. “The materials are the same as the rest of the ones in the set?”

“Aside from the monster parts, yeah.”

“And you aren’t messing up the ratio of metal or something like that?”

“I don’t think so. It’s no different than the amounts I used for the rest of the set.”

“Intent is correct as well, I take it?”

Arwin nodded. “Yeah. I’m also using metal that actually wants to be gauntlets, so it’s not like I’m fighting it. It should be helping me.”

They both fell silent for a few more moments. Then Lillia tilted her head to the side, her gaze returning to the meat on the counter. “You know, when I think about a recipe, the result is only as good as all the ingredients that go in. There’s more to an ingredient than just the type.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m not sure it’s a complete one to one comparison, but take this,” Lillia said with a nod. “Wyrmling meat is a good ingredient, but I tried marinating one piece in water. It didn’t turn out very well.”

“Why did you try marinating something in water?”

Lillia’s cheeks colored. “I wanted to see if it would get juicier. It just got watery. That’s despite the point. You can have different qualities of the same ingredient. I ruined the piece of Wyrmling meat by marinating it.”

“You don’t marinate metal, though,” Arwin said. “It’s just a brick of Ivorin. I haven’t done anything special to it.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. It could need preparation or something,” Lillia offered.

Arin considered the idea for a few moments. It wasn’t a bad one, but he had absolutely no idea how he was meant to prepare metal. Metal was metal, after —

Wait. Impurities. I’m an idiot. No piece of metal is just pure metal. There’s shit in the Ivorin and Brightsteel that lowers its quality. I don’t know how much that could affect something, but lower quality metal is a worse material, and that means the item as a whole is worse.

“You might be a genius,” Arwin exclaimed. “Thank you!”

Lillia blinked. “I — uh… you’re welcome?”

Arwin was already out the door. He shot back into the smithy and over to his hearth. He had no clue how much impurity was in a piece of Brightsteel or Ivorin, but there was definitely some.

All he had to do was figure out how to remove it.

That, unfortunately, immediately stumped him.

How do I completely get crud out of metal? Now that I think about it, that was the whole point of banging the crap out of the metal before I start working with it. I was kind of just mimicking the smiths I’ve seen before. Was there another way they cleaned metal up?

Arwin’s brow furrowed as he dug through his memories, but nothing came to mind. He started to pace again. There had to be a better way to purify metal than smacking it.

Logically, what even are impurities? Probably dirt or stone or the like. Doesn’t that melt slower than metal?

His eyes flicked over to the [Soul Flame] in his hearth. It wasn’t nearly hot enough to straight up melt metal… but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it. One of the upgrades he’d gotten for [Soul Flame] allowed him to increase its temperature at the cost of drawing more energy.

Arwin grabbed a piece of Brightsteel and used [Scourge] to break off a palm-sized chunk. He glanced around the room for anything to hold it, then quickly realized that he had no idea what Brightsteel and Ivorin’s melting points were. It was hard to make a holster to melt something if the holster ended up melting first.

Eh, I suppose my hands will do.

He took the piece of Brightsteel to the hearth and cupped his palms beneath it as he brought the metal into the warm fire.

I wonder how hot metal needs to get to start melting.

Another thought struck Arwin and he paused for a moment as a piece of a puzzle he hadn’t even been actively considering clicked into place.

Is this why dwarven smithing uses lava? It would explain a ton. It’s not just to look cool. It’s damned hot. Great way to melt metal. I don’t know how I didn’t see that earlier. It’s too bad I don’t have that magma ball anymore, but I already put that to a good use.

Arwin started pouring magical energy into the [Soul Flame], bringing its temperature up as high as he could take it.

There was only one thing left to do.

He had to melt some metal.

Chapter 194

The [Soul Flame] turned a vibrant blue as Arwin pumped it full of energy. It had taken him nearly five minutes to feed it enough energy to get this level of intensity and it didn’t look like it was going to get any hotter.

Forunately, it didn’t need to. The large chunk of Brightsteel cupped in his palms started to glow. It went from red to a dull orange, soon approaching a yellowish-white as the intense flame enveloped it.

Arwin squinted through the waves of heat rolling off the hearth as the temperature in the smithy started to rise. Even with his resistance to his own fire, the sweltering flame was enough to cause droplets of sweat to roll down his forehead.

The top of the Brightsteel rippled and started to turn liquid as it grew hotter and hotter. Tiny patches of relative darkness stood out amidst the glowing yellow-white. Arwin turned the piece over, keeping the metal cupped in his palms as more of it turned to liquid.

Several small dots and tiny chunks of glowing debris littered the molten metal pooled in his hands. Arwin glanced around, then cursed. There was a little more liquid than he’d expected there to be, but he didn’t have anywhere to put it while he fished out the debris.

Arwin transferred the metal to one hand, spilling some in the process, and then started fishing out the little chunks with the other. Once he’d gotten the biggest parts out, he did his best to pour it out into the other hand, leaving the majority of the debris behind.

It was far from the most effective strategy and he lost more metal than he would have cared to in the process, but it worked. At least, it looked like it worked.

He took the metal away from the flame and held it out in the air, waiting as it cooled and solidified back into a blob in his palms. Arwin studied it, then blew out a breath. Even if this method technically worked, he was going to end up with a bunch of little nuggets instead of workable ingots.

Then again, I can re-heat them with [Soul Flame] and merge everything back together at the end. Not the most efficient way by any means. I should try to get my hands on a mold I can pour metal into. A crucible as well. Something that can withstand the heat of the heightened [Soul Flame] because I’m not so sure my current hearth will hold up against that.

There was always the option of asking Madiv to try and find a crucible, but Arwin had already gotten started and he still didn’t know if his idea would even work. There was no point investing too much effort into getting supplies if it ended up a dud.

With that in mind, he got another chunk of Brightsteel and brought it to the molten blue [Soul Flame]. He was going to need to cook quite a few more pieces of metal if he wanted to get enough to work with for a whole pair of gauntlets.

***

It took Arwin about two hours to form enough “purified” chunks of both Brightsteel and Ivorin to be satisfied. Once he was pretty sure he had enough raw material, he took to using [Scourge] and a significantly weakened [Soul Flame] to press all the Brightsteel back together, kneading it like playdough before bringing it over to the anvil and hammering away at it with Verdant Blaze to make a single, workable sheet.

Once he finished, Arwin repeated the process with the Ivorin. It was a lot of work to get just a single pair of metal sheets, just barely enough for one pair of gauntlets, but it would be worth it if it worked.

At least, I hope it will be. If this isn’t the issue, I’m going to be pissed. I don’t even know if this has completely purified the metal. Is it even possible? I’m sure some impurities are still there, even if I got a lot of them.

The only way to find out would be to put the metal to use. Fortunately, even if all his efforts hadn’t completely purged every last scrap of impurity from the metal, it had come with one extra, unexpected, benefit.

After working the metal for so long and so extensively, he almost felt an innate connection between himself and the two metal sheets. It wasn’t a connection that could be attributed to the Mesh or any form of magic — they’d just had the equivalent of a two-hour long conversation.

He’d never spent that much time getting to know any of his materials before working with them. There hadn’t been a reason to. Even though he wasn’t going to get any direct benefits from the understanding, as both the Brightsteel and Ivorin had been amicable to being gauntlets before, he could already tell that this pair of gauntlets would come together far easier than previous versions.

Arwin took an hour to rest and gather his magical energy back, but his mind didn’t leave the topic of the gauntlets once. He went through every step he’d be doing in his mind, repeating it over and over until it felt like he’d made them a thousand times over.

As soon as he had the majority of his magical energy back, Arwin went right back to work. He brought the white gemstone and Wyrmling tooth back over to the anvil and set them down beside the sheets of metal, trying to think on if he’d missed anything else.

Nothing came to mind. He’d taken all the steps he could to make sure that this attempt succeeded. All that remained was to actually take the plunge and make sure his intent was correct.

Arwin moved everything other than the Brightsteel to the side, then got to work. He separated the sheet into segments and went back through practiced motions, making every segment of the gauntlets.

He then repeated the process with the Ivorin, working the two metals together and slowly starting to make recognizable segments for the gauntlets. Arwin quenched the segments as he finished them, then stacked everything up on the anvil.

As before, he ended the fingertips in points — not too long, so as to avoid accidentally cutting his own palm open every time he clenched his fist, but enough to let the gloves actually have a way to rip into his targets.

He made sure to avoid accidentally making the gauntlets too stiff and hindering his movements, but he also put in more than adequate amounts of plating over the stiff portions to make sure they’d be able to block a blow without shattering.

The gauntlets steadily came together. He connected the pieces with rivets, testing and moving each segment before moving right on to the next one. Through the entire process, he continued to pour magical energy from himself into the gloves.

Energy tingled within the metal as he worked it into shape, making small adjustments with his hands and [Scourge]. Once the bodies of the gauntlets were completed, Arwin added the gemstone to the back of the left gauntlet.

He went to add the Wyrmling tooth to the right one, but paused as he was preparing to press it into the back of the palm.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to use a claw as an actual claw? Or at least put it in the spot of where a claw would be? A gem on the back of the hand is fine, but claws should actually be used for what their purpose is.

Arwin’s brow furrowed as he split his attention, keeping his intent as best he could while thoughts flashed through his mind.

 Changing what he was doing midway through didn’t seem like a good idea. He already had a plan laid out — but that plan wasn’t really based on anything concrete.

If I put the claw in a fingertip, it feels wrong to just have one. Every finger should have one. But that would mean I’m working with six monster parts instead of just two. Given the huge increase of difficulty of adding in a single extra item… five could be too much.

But they’re doing the same thing. That might make the extra draw more manageable.

He didn’t have the mental capacity to fully consider the decision and keep his focus at the same time. The only thing he could do was act. After one more instant of hesitation, Arwin hurried over to his pile of Wyrmling parts and scooped up four more teeth.

Working them into the fingertips of the right gauntlet was simple enough, and soon had one of them firmly lodged and buried within the metal at the end of each finger. To Arwin’s relief, it didn’t seem like the draw of magical energy or focus had changed significantly by using more teeth.

Now there was a new problem. If the claws were based on Wyrmling teeth on one gauntlet, it didn’t make sense for them to be normal on the other glove.

Why would it even have claws at all? That’s just stepping in the first gauntlet’s territory. They’re meant to be a pair. One rips, the other stores.

Arwin s removed the pointed tips from the left gauntlet’s fingers, rounding them out. He brought the white gemstone out a little, making sure it was visible on the back of the gauntlet, then started carving jagged designs into the gauntlet with a nail and [Scourge].

Once he finished, he swapped over to the clawed gauntlet and repeated the process, drawing identical designs. He didn’t really have a reason for it other than it felt right, but that was as good of a reason as any.

His brow knit in concentration as he put the finishing touches onto the gauntlets. His reserves of magical energy were dwindling to alarming levels, but it didn’t matter. He polished the gauntlets off and sharpened each of the claws on his whetstone.

Arwin then looked over them with a sharp eye in search of any mistakes. The gauntlets glistened, a mixture of silver and ivory. One ended with wicked claws, short but razor-sharp. The other bore a pale white gem like a milky eye lying in wait for promised power. Energy swirled within the gauntlets, waiting for release.

There was nothing else to do.

He mentally acknowledged that his work was done, letting his hands drop to his sides. The Mesh didn’t wait a second longer. Power erupted around the gauntlets and swirled down the grooves he’d carved into their surface.

 [The Ivory Executioner’s Hands: Epic Quality] have been forged. Forging a magical item has granted you energy.

[Getting Competent] – Awarded for forging your first Epic Quality item completely from scratch. Effects: Upgrade one of your existing skills. This achievement will be consumed immediately.