Rise of the Living Forge - Chapter 195-196 (Patreon)

I am getting rolled by this sickness, but I think I recover soon. Only a nasty sore throat left. Prayge. I just want to write happily again.

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[Getting competent] has been consumed. 

As much as Arwin wanted to check out his new gauntlets’ stats, he had an equally important task to handle first. His information page floated in the air before him, all his skills laid out in wait.

[Awaken] (Passive)

[Molten Novice] (Passive)

[Soul Flame]

[Arsenal]

[Dragon’s Greed]

Every new skill upgrade got harder and harder to choose. It was a good problem to have, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a problem. There was no doubt that [Awaken] was probably the ability with the most potential in it.

Wyrmhunger’s existence proved that. The weapon, just an average dagger, had formed such an intense connection to Reya that it had literally killed a Wyrm for her. Even though Verdant Blaze hadn’t done anything at that level, he had felt the weapon’s growing intelligence over the past weeks.

He wasn’t sure why it wasn’t at Wyrmhunger’s level yet, but there was no denying that the hammer was powerful and would grow stronger still with time. [Awaken] gave his weapons the ability to become truly legendary. There was just one reason to hesitate.

[Awaken]’s upgrades also came with the most drawback. The last one had made it so that every magical item he made had a chance to essentially fight back against him. It wasn’t every single time, and it looked like he’d managed to avoid a vision whilst making the gauntlets, but it was far too frequent to just completely ignore.

I can’t have it so that my weapons are so strong that I literally can’t control them. If I’ve learned one thing about smithing in the relatively short time I’ve spent as a smith, it’s that I need to be the one in control. I can’t rely on the Mesh and I can’t let the materials just do what they want.

If I upgrade [Awaken] here, I could end up making it so that I can’t handle the visions that come with any Awakened weapons. It would be wise to wait a little longer before upgrading it again.

That brought him to the next in line, Molten Novice. Given the discovery he and Lillia had come to just a short while ago, it was definitely a strong contender. If he could find a way to control or use lava to melt down his metal and purify it, it could change everything.

Given the fact the Mesh gave me an achievement for the gauntlets, even though I can’t see their stats yet, I’m pretty sure the crafting attempt worked correctly this time. I just have no damn idea what upgrading Molten Novice would even do.

I need a proper dwarven smith to teach me. Maybe I can put out a request for one?

Arwin shook his head before he could go off on too much of a tangent. Molten Novice was a good option to go with, if only because he knew it would eventually be useful. It wasn’t like an upgrade would make it worse.

[Soul Flame] was in a similar position. It had been his most consistently useful ability and was integral to just about everything he did. He wasn’t sure what the next upgrade would do to it.

Maybe it’ll get more energy efficient or the temperature it can reach will go higher? No clue. Definitely an option, but I don’t think my hearth can actually handle a higher heat than what I’ve reached. There’s another thing I need to the add to the list. Better hearth for lava.

The final two options were [Arsenal] and [Dragon’s Greed]. Of the two, [Arsenal] was the first ability Arwin was able to dismiss from the list of potential options on the spot. It was a fantastic power and had been integral to his success thus far, but it already did everything he needed it to.

Making it stronger wouldn’t give him any real benefits. [Dragon’s Greed], on the other hand, was a different story. It had proven pretty useful in the Journeyman Ranked dungeon. Being able to spot magical items was a fantastic power. Sure, it didn’t help in a fight or with crafting, but getting more magical materials or items was literally never a bad thing.

An upgrade to the ability would probably end up letting it sense more accurately or farther. There was a chance it would let him specialize or focus on what he was searching for as well.

That was rather tempting. If he wanted to continue making very specific enchantments, he’d almost certainly start to need very specific components. There was no way to guarantee that was what he’d get, but Arwin had a decent understanding of the Mesh after all his years in the Kingdom of Lian.

It was a common sentiment that, even though the Mesh wasn’t alive, it still existed as a way to screw people over. Arwin had never agreed with the latter half of the statement, and after recent events, now he knew the first half of it was wrong as well.

 The Mesh wasn’t malicious. It simply sought challenge. It gave people exactly what they wanted — it just didn’t make it easy. The Mesh didn’t care if someone succeeded or failed. As long as the opportunity was there, it was satisfied.

That said, he had three pretty solid ability upgrade options. [Soul Flame], [Molten Novice], and [Dragon’s Greed]. Arwin considered the benefits and drawbacks of each one for a few more moments, not letting his impatience to see his new gauntlets interfere with his decision-making process. The gauntlets would still be there once he chose.

The first option he crossed off was [Molten Novice]. While making it stronger wouldn’t have hurt, he still didn’t actually know the full extent of what it did. Advancing an ability he didn’t understand, especially keeping in mind how badly the Mesh had held back his crafting when he’d over-relied on its guidance, felt like a poor idea.

After another minute of thought, Arwin crossed [Soul Flame] off as well. It currently did everything he needed it to and [Dragon’s Greed] would likely be more useful in the near future. He could always put another point into [Soul Flame] later but missing potential loot in a dungeon couldn’t be undone.

Arwin selected [Dragon’s Greed].

[Dragon’s Greed] – Your hunger for magical power has begun to manifest itself in the physical world. Extend your senses to search the area around you for magical items at the cost of significant magical energy. The range of this effect scales with the amount of magical energy used. At the cost of extra magical energy, the focus of this ability can be targeted to a specific type of magical item or material.

He smiled. He’d read the Mesh correctly — or perhaps it had just humored him. Either way, he’d gotten what he wanted and there was no reason to delay any longer. Arwin waved the glowing words away and quickly turned to his newly made gauntlets to finally discover what his efforts had netted him.

The Ivory Executioner’s Hands: Epic Quality

[Reave]: The insatiable hunger of a Wyrmling pulses within the razor-sharp tips of this item. Any wounds inflicted by this item on a living creature will steal a small portion of their physical strength. This trait’s effects are reduced the greater the target’s tier is than this item’s wielder. 

[Magical Storage]: Any power taken by [Reave] is kept within this item and can be released into a weapon to empower its attack. Stored energy will eventually deteriorate if left untouched for sufficient amounts of time.

[Executioner’s Promise]: This item’s wielder can draw the energy held by [Magical Storage] into themselves instead of pushing it into a weapon. Energy drawn in this manner will temporarily stem wounds and provide a burst of resilience.  A significant portion of the energy will be lost in conversion when this trait is activated.

[Armor of the Executioner]: This is a set item of [?] pieces. When the entire set is worn, a concealed property will be unlocked.

Arwin bound the gauntlets with the last remaining slot of [Arsenal] before he’d even finished reading over their abilities. A smile, equal parts delight and relief, crawled across his face.

The gauntlets had turned out perfect. They were exactly what he’d been hoping for. There was only a single problem with them — unlike all his other items, there was nothing to conceal their properties from anyone else.

Once he managed to finish the Ivory Executioner set, that wouldn’t be a problem. There were just two things left to do there. Namely, making sabatons and remaking his chestpiece. He was already planning to learn how to make boots, so the former would be next.

The chestpiece would come after. Then he would be done. Arwin studied his new gauntlets with the gaze of a proud father for another minute before dismissing them and letting out a satisfied sigh.

He stepped out of the back of the smithy and into the main room. The sunlight spilling in told him that it was already slightly late in the day and somewhere slightly past lunch. Arwin hesitated as he looked around the smithy.

Something felt off, and it took him a second to realize what it was.

All the gold that had been piled up just beside the back door was missing. His eyes widened. His gaze shot around the room, but there was no damage to anything. The door was intact and there weren’t any signs of a forced entry.

He shot out onto the street, striding for the inn. The door opened just as he went to reach for it and he found himself face to face with Rodrick. Arwin opened his mouth, but the warrior spoke before he could.

“Relax, Arwin,” Rodrick said through a chuckle. “The gold is fine. Lillia said you’d probably panic when you realized it was missing, but we didn’t want to bother you while you were working.”

The words died on Arwin’s lips and he ran a hand through his hair. “I probably should have guessed. I was so focused on my work that I wasn’t really thinking when I saw it was missing. Good timing. I would have burst in there yelling about thieves. You moved the gold, I take it?”

“Jake showed back up asking for his payment. We aren’t an official guild yet, but we figured there was no reason holding off and getting him in hot water,” Rodrick explained. “We got him his money and moved the rest into an unused room. We really need a better way to store it, by the way.”

“Another thing for the list,” Arwin muttered as his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “Damn. That was a burst of emotions I wasn’t expecting. So everything is fine?”

Rodrick nodded. “All fine. Lillia did ask that we not disturb her right now, though. She started some big test with her cooking or something and wants to be focused.”

“Noted,” Arwin said. “Do you know if anyone else showed up looking for me today?”

“A few adventurers, but we had ‘em put their name on the waitlist. Were you waiting for someone in particular?”

“No, that’s perfect. Just good to know the interest is carrying over. I need to make sure we keep capitalizing on it. It’ll take a little while for adventurers to test out the armor, so I should get some more sets prepared for after demand starts going up.”

“Already?” Rodrick raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know what a break is, do you?”

“There’s a time and a place for a break, but this isn’t it. We’ve got too many enemies and too many things that can go wrong. The path before us is open, so we need to charge down at full speed until we’re at a spot where pausing is safe.”

“I know where you’re coming from, but I’ve lived by those thoughts before,” Rodrick said with a note of warning in his voice. “The problem with them is, no matter how far ahead you get, you never feel safe.”

Arwin grunted in agreement. “You aren’t wrong, but for the time being, this is fine. I’ll probably head into town, then. I want to see if the Adventurer’s Guild has finished officializing us yet.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let the others know,” Rodrick said. “I’m heading out to do a little reconnaissance on how the Ardent guild took our sales yesterday, so I’ll likely catch you around tonight.”

The two nodded to each other before parting ways, and Arwin set off to find the Adventurer’s Guild once more. If there was any way to get their guild formally recognized faster, they needed it. The sooner they did, the sooner the street would officially be theirs.

Chapter 196

“I cannot bring myself to speak aloud the extent of your idiocy, but I could be swayed to carve it into your skin.”

 Tironal, the leader of the Ardent Guild, sat in a chair too small for him, his jaw stiff and hands clenched so tightly around the finely carved armrests that his knuckles were white and their wood creaked beneath his palms.

Charles winced beneath the guild leader’s withering gaze. If he could have sunk into the floor, Tironal strongly suspected that he would have done so long ago. That might have spared the both of them a fair amount of trouble.

“It’s unfair to blame the boy for everything,” Vorfen said. The bearded warrior stood beside Charles was the only reason Tironal hadn’t hung the boy by his thumbs in the center of the guildhall, but even Vorfen’s influence would only go so far.

“If I blamed him for everything then he’d have been blacklisted himself and booted out onto the street that he came from,” Tironal snapped. “I blame him only for the abject failure that was his plan. A plan, I remind you, that you fully backed.”

“It should have worked,” Charles stammered. “Reya had a key to a dungeon. She stole it from a thieves’ guild, and I know it was a pretty good one. That’s got to be what her guild has been using to grow so quickly.”

“I’m sure it is,” Tironal said. He forced his hand to unclench before he accidentally broke the chair. “Unfortunately, it is in their hands, not ours. I agreed to allow a blacklist because it was targeted at a man that had assaulted one of our members. Blacklisting one incompetent, murderous merchant is no issue. Blacklisting a street rat to get a dungeon key from her is no issue either. But why is it, Vorfen, that you told me their guild was worthless?”

“They stumbled into a lucky break,” Vorfen said. “We can’t possibly have predicted—”

“Your damned job is to predict!” Tironal roared, flying from his chair. “I pay you a hundred Energy Crystals a year to research our opponents and seek out opportunity. Your job is not to create risk. It is to avoid it!”

“The risk was minor,” Vorfen insisted, his features paling slightly. “A smith should not have been capable of this. I know for a fact this smith was nothing special. He had a few mildly above average sales, but multiple different informants tested his products and told me they were far from special. The smith was even spotted buying material from his competitor. He had no supply lines. Nothing. Someone must have gotten wind of our movements and tried to use this as a way to weaken our strength.”

Tironal pressed his fingers to his palms and lowered himself back into his chair. Flying into a rage was unbecoming of a guild leader. “Despite your best efforts, our strength has not been weakened. Our face, however, has. We look like idiot bullies. Rumors already spread through the town that we attempt to crush out minor guilds before they can take root.”

Charles coughed into a fist and Tironal’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you have something to say?”

“I mean no disrespect,” Charles said hurriedly. “But…”

He trailed off, evidently unable to find any way to say his words without actually causing disrespect. Tironal blew out a short breath.

“We do crush out competition. Yes. Every guild does,” Tironal ground out. “That is not the issue. The issue is twofold. First, we had no reason established in the public view to need to crush them. And second, the public is talking about it. Both of these things should have been your responsibility, Vorfen. You and Charles told me you had both of those under control.”

“I swear to you that we did,” Vorfen said. His hands clenched at his sides and he shook his head. “I don’t understand what happened. Everything in my network confirmed that nobody cared about their guild. They confirmed the merchant was disliked and the street rat had more enemies than anyone else in the city. The smith was unknown. There should have been no issue.”

“Should have been.” Tironal chewed the inside of his cheeks. “Perhaps I should have gotten a more competent spymaster. A failure this colossal is unacceptable, and it was for a reward that isn’t even worth the effort.”

“Then—”

“I pray that you are not about to suggest that we back out,” Tironal said, his eyes going as sharp as knives. “Because that would be admitting defeat. Defeat to a guild that isn’t even official yet. It would spell the end of our guild. The Dawnseekers would be at our throats the very same night they heard of such weakness. We would completely lose our foothold here.”

“It is possible the Dawnseekers are funding this guild,” Vorfen offered.

“Possible?” Tironal’s eye twitched and he nearly leapt out of his chair for the second time. “Are they or are they not? It is your job to know this! You tell me! And while you’re at it, tell me how this apparently worthless guild managed to steal the first clear of our dungeon while getting our own damned adventurers singing their praises in the process?”

Vorfen and Charles both flinched at the vitriol in Tironal’s voice. The guild leader drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing the anger down.

“We’ll fix it,” Vorfen promised.

Tironal sank into his chair and shook his head.

“It should already be fixed,” Tironal said wearily. “I sent an order to purchase the land of their guild out from under them. Once we have it, I will gift it back to them in exchange for being part of their council. That will give us enough control and let us save at least a little face.”

Vorfen winced. Tironal’s eyes narrowed.

“That… may not happen,” Vorfen said slowly. “The purchase order was blocked.”

“What?” Tironal shot up in his chair. “Why am I just hearing this?”

“I thought it was the reason you called me here in the first place.” A droplet of sweat rolled down the side of Vorfen’s face and vanished into his beard. “I got word this morning that we’d placed an order on the land the Menagerie’s guild is on, but it had been rejected.”

“We were outbid?” Tironal demanded. “How?”

“I haven’t determined that yet, but I am looking into it. I was shocked myself. It means someone else must have put in an order at nearly the same time, and with a budget larger than ours.”

“I know what it means,” Tironal said. What little calm he’d managed to gather for himself started to evaporate. Had someone managed to predict their move? Sure, the Menagerie might have — but there was absolutely no way they had the capital to spare.

Even with all the sales they’d made recently, they couldn’t have made more than ten or twenty thousand gold. That was nowhere near enough to compete with his purchase order.

Is it possible they actually have a benefactor working with them? If they do, then Vorfen isn’t just doing poorly. He’s completely and utterly failing at his task.

Vorfen cleared his throat hurriedly. “I assure you that Charles and I are on the task, guild leader. The purchase order was blocked, but the Menagerie are still on very shaky ground. We can still crush them without overplaying our own hand.”

“If we crush them at this point, all we look like is petty, arrogant fools,” Tironal said. “Did you understand nothing of what I just told you?”

“Then we’ll give them an offer to join us that they can’t refuse,” Vorfen amended. “The information we’ve been getting seems… off. I don’t know why, but I can assure you that I’ll find out. Once I determine the issue, dealing with the Menagerie will be simple. Your plan still may be viable.”

“How so?”

“The Menagerie are not an official guild yet. They put in the request, but it hasn’t been approved. It’s impossible for them to own land, which means they’ve likely worked with someone else. If we can find them, we can buy the land before it goes to the Menagerie.”

 Tironal tapped his fingers on his armrests. It was far from ideal, but it was better than just sitting back and doing nothing. The other major merchant guilds in the area would be watching them now. Vorfen had already put far too much resource into handling the small guild for him to let up and admit defeat.

I never should have let it get this far. I was distracted, so the blame rests largely on my own shoulders. It is still a shock that Vorfen was this incompetent. He has never been so addled. First with recruiting a random street rat, now this.

Vorfen caught the look on Tironal’s face and swallowed. “I know my performance has been less than adequate. I will re-evaluate my information networks in the city. It is possible someone from one of the other guilds has been interfering. It will not continue to happen.”

“Ensure it doesn’t, or both you and your apprentice will join the Menagerie on being blacklisted,” Tironal said. He flicked his hand to dismiss them and the two hurried out of his room, closing the door behind them in the process.

Tironal just massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed. Taking financial control of Milten with the Iron Hounds gone should have been such an easy task that he’d let his subordinates run wild with freedom. It was clear that either Charles or Vorfen had something personal against the Menagerie, and they’d used the opportunity to push farther than they should have. That was a mistake he had no plans of repeating.

Unfortunately, now he had no choice. If they were to maintain their strength, the small guild had to be either brought under their wing or crushed quietly.

***

A guard pushed himself away from the wall. He adjusted the ill-fitting suit of armor on his chest and strode confidently down the hall, his helm’s visor lowered to cover his face.

A guildsman with a golden sword embossed upon a red patch at the center of his armor nodded to him as he passed. “Shift over? I don’t envy you. I heard that Tironal has been right furious these last few days.”

“More than,” the guard said through a laugh. His voice was nasally and congested. “And it’s the poor saps in his room you should feel bad about.”

The guildsman shook his head. “All this work for such a small guild seems like a huge waste, but I guess Tironal knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t led us wrong yet. Why in the Nine Underlands do you sound like that, though?”

“I caught something nasty. It’s been a rough fight.”

“Yeah, you sound like shit.”

“Look like it too.” The guard tapped his visor and sniffled. “Nose lights up like a star when I get sick. I’m saving myself from a reputation.”

“No kidding. Who are you? I can’t tell. Joseph? Bradlen?”

The sick guard let out a snort. “Did you miss the reputation part? I’m going to go crash and hope this shit is done sooner rather than later.”

They both laughed and nodded to each other, heading in opposite directions down the hall. The sick man wound his way out of the guildhouse, nodding to the guards at its entrance before heading out onto the streets.

Once he’d put a fair bit of distance between himself and the guild, he ducked into an alleyway. The man reached up to his helm and pulled it off, coughing into a fist as he pulled the balled up wet papers from his nostrils and wiped his face with the back of a sleeve.

“I almost feel bad for that idiot spymaster, but he should really vet his sources better,” Rodrick muttered as he combed his matted hair back out, unable to keep a small grin from his lips. There was a certain thrill that came with strolling right through enemy territory that he’d never properly gotten over. “I hope Lillia made something good for lunch. I’m starving.”