Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 203-204 (Patreon)

Arwin and Lillia stood on either side of his anvil. The heart thumped away on top of it, dull red flesh pulsating with every beat. They’d decided what they were going to do, but actually doing it was a bit more difficult in practice.

“Where do we even start?” Lillia muttered. “I haven’t made food for a heart before. I guess it should be… mush, or something? We could stuff it into one of the heart-holes.”

Arwin lifted his gaze to look at her, holding back a laugh. “Lillia, I don’t think you can just stuff food into a random hole and hope it gets power from it. It’s a heart. A creepy one, but it’s still a heart.”

Lillia’s nose scrunched. “What if you make a bunch of sharp spiky things on it?”

“I get the feeling that squishing food up and stuffing it into a heart isn’t going to do anything better than shoving a whole roast turkey into it,” Arwin said with a shake of his head. “I do like the idea of somehow converting the food to something the heart can use, though.”

“The can use bit is the problem. I don’t think hearts are meant to consume any amount of energy,” Lillia grumbled. “The stupid Prism thing we got was an exception… but maybe we could take inspiration? It was also a heart, right?”

“I think it had more magic in it. This one doesn’t have a Mesh identification.”

Lillia looked back to the red lump of flesh on the anvil and chewed her lower lip. Her tail snaked out from her pants and brushed back and forth across the floor in thought. Arwin’s eyes followed it, temporarily mesmerized.

“Maybe that’s what we have to focus on making first,” Lillia said.

Arwin blinked and look up. “Sorry, what was that? I was distracted.”

“I could tell.” Lillia snorted and she walked around the anvil to stand near him. Her tail snaked out to wrap around his leg and pull him a closer. “Could we start by making something that converts magical food into pure magical energy? That would handle one of the issues.”

“Huh.” Arwin tilted his head to the side. That was definitely easier said than done, but it was a step along the right path — and it gave him another idea. “Maybe we treat the heart like an actual heart. Just… a magical one. If we can get the magical energy stored in some kind of liquid, we could treat it like blood.”

“That’s… strikingly unsettling,” Lillia said. She grinned. “It just might work. How do we even start that?”

Arwin cast his gaze around the room to take in all the components he had. This wasn’t making a weapon. It was a lot more complicated, but all he could do was take things one step at a time.

“If I think about it, I’m basically trying to distill [The Hungering Maw] into an item. Intent is really important whenever I make something, so I bet it’ll be the same for when we’re trying to artificially replicate it. I need to somehow imbue intent into my intent."

Lillia nodded sagely. Then she frowned and gave his leg a gentle tug with her tail. “You lost me. What do you mean?”

“You know how your intent heavily controls the result you get while crafting… or cooking, I guess.”

“Yeah. I get that part. But how does intent have intent?”

“We don’t know what kind of food this is going to eat or how it’s going to work,” Arwin said after taking a few seconds to collect his thoughts so he could articulate them properly. “So that means this contraption is going to have to be able to take in some random kind of food and convert it to magic energy. That requires intent.”

“Right.” Lillia nodded. “I’m still with you.”

“So if I work from the bottom up, the converter needs intent to convert magic food to pure magic, but I need to make the converter in the first place. That also requires intent. So that’s basically two layers of intent. I need to have the intent to make something that can in itself simulate intent.”

“That is a damn brain twister,” Lillia said with a shudder. “I’ve got you now.” She paused for a moment and a small grin flitted across her lips as she poked him with the tip of her tail. “Figuratively and literally.”

Arwin laughed and shook his head. “That’s good, because it’s threatening to slip out of my head even as I think about it. I basically need an Awakened item, but I can’t just force something to wake up. I can only make them with the potential to wake, and the only item that’s done that so far is Wyrmhunger.

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” Lillia suggested. She rested her chin on Arwin’s shoulder and thought for a second. “I think you’re making your end too complicated. Reduce the requirements. I’ll make sure the food always has a similar form of intent behind it. It’ll just be the closest thing to pure strength that I can get. Then you have your bit focus on harvesting the strength energy and converting that. Leave the rest of it as waste.”

That would definitely reduce the amount I would have to do. I still need to deal with the crux of the issue — finding a way to convert magic food to magic —  but it narrows the scope.

“Good idea,” Arwin said. “This is definitely something that has to be made in pieces. Basically a set… but for a heart instead of a living person. Three pieces, I think? Each one can have intent to help reduce the food down to a base magical form and help the process along.”

“What if you replicate something similar to normal eating?” Lillia asked, her eyes lighting up as she abruptly straightened, nearly yanking Arwin off his feet when she forgot that she was still holding onto his leg with her tail.  

He stumbled and she jerked to a halt, her cheeks going bright red. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Arwin said as she released him, shaking his head and laughing. “How damn strong is your tail?”

“I mean… it’s there for a reason. What, did you think they were just ornamental?”

Arwin scratched the back of his neck. If he was honest, he hadn’t really put that much thought into it in the first place. But, now that he was, he couldn’t shake an image of Lillia swinging by her tail from branch to branch in a canopy like a monkey. He coughed into his fist. “So what was it that you realized?”

“Oh, right!” her eyes lit back up. “I think I figured out how to do make this! We have to replicate the actual digestion process. The first part of the set can physically break down the food and prepare it for treatment. The second one can mix it with something that melts it down somehow, separating the waste from the useful energy. Then the third can pass that useful energy into the heart. How about that?”

It was as sound an idea as any, and Lillia sounded so excited about it that Arwin couldn’t have brought himself to say anything other than yes anyway. It was surprisingly straightforward in concept.

That was good. If he could visualize it, he could make it. All he needed was the intent, willpower to push it through, and monster parts that could enable him to do what he needed.

The first part… I guess I need to make a fake mouth? A millstone of some sort, perhaps. Or just jaws. I’ve got a lot of Wyrmling claws and fangs. I’ll have to do some testing to figure out if ripping or crushing is more effective.

“What kind of food were you thinking of making?” Arwin asked as he walked to his pile of Wyrmling parts and started gathering the materials he would need. “Is there something that would lend itself to pure strength more?”

“Meat,” Lillia said without a second of hesitation. “It’s muscle, and muscle definitely has the most strength intent. The exact type depends on what it came from, but I think that should be general enough.”

How do we actually eat things? I’ve never put thought into it. I just chew. I need a reference.

“Do you have any food on you right now?”

Lillia blinked. She rifled through her pockets and pulled out a small piece of blackened meat. “I’ve got this. I was experimenting with Wyrm jerky. It didn’t turn out very good. Turns out, you can’t speed up how fast it dries by setting it on fire. That just burns it.”

“Could you eat it for me? I want to see how your mouth works.”

She arched an eyebrow, then shrugged and put it into her mouth. Arwin stepped closer and squinted at her as she started to chew.

“Hold on. I can’t see what you’re doing. Open your mouth.”

Lillia stared at him. She raised a hand to cover her mouth before speaking. “You want me to chew with my mouth open? What am I, a barn animal?”

“It’s research. I can’t see myself eat.”

Shoulders slumping slightly, Lillia let her hand drop and did as he asked. Fortunately for both of them, there wasn’t that much jerky. Less fortunately for Lillia, it looked to be as tough as a strip of leather and it took her nearly a minute to finish it.

By the time she was done, her cheeks had once again been reddened by embarrassment and Arwin was intimately acquaintance with just how someone chewed a particularly stubborn piece of jerky.

“I really hope we don’t need to do that again,” Lillia said.

“I don’t think so.” Arwin shook his head, his thoughts still focused on just how he’d make a functioning replica of a mouth work. “Unless demon jaws work really different than human ones. Do you think you should watch me eat and—”

“Unless this is something you’re really interested in doing, I am going to firmly decline.”

“Eh. That’s probably fine. I think I’ve got what I need,” Arwin said. Lillia blew out a relieved breath.

“Good. Then how do we do this? I could go start making some practice food. It’ll take me a bit before I figure out how to optimize it.”

“You could, but I think you could still help me. I want to try something,” Ariwn said thoughtfully. “I’ve got a grasp of the physical mechanism, but you understand food and its purpose more than me. Do you think you could try to help me form the actual intent for the item?”

“Is that even possible? I’m not a crafter.”

“I’ve got no idea,” Arwin admitted with a shrug. “But we’re trying to make something that really feels like it has no right to exist. Might as well see what else we can screw up in the process.”

Lillia grinned. “When you put it like that, how can I refuse? Let’s give it a shot.”

Chapter 204

Before Arwin and Lillia could combine their intent into anything, Arwin had to prepare the metal. While Lillia watched, he gathered some Brightsteel and a piece of Ivorin.

Something at this level would definitely need the metal to be as pure as possible. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to ask Madiv for a crucible. Arwin blew out a breath as he empowered his [Soul Flame] and started melting down nuggets one chunk at a time.

“What are you doing?” Lillia asked as she watched from a safe distance over his shoulder.

“I recently discovered that the purity of the metal affects the results of what I make a lot. Melting it down lets me remove a lot of the crud,” Arwin replied as he picked out a piece of dark debris from the glowing watery metal pooled in his palm. “I was going to ask Madiv to get me a better way to melt it down but it completely slipped my mind. I got distracted.”

It took him a little under an hour to finish preparing the rest of the metal. It went a little faster now that he’d done it once before already, but it was still longer than he’d hoped to make Lillia stand around and wait.

She didn’t seem to mind. Lillia watched him intently, taking in every move he made and likely trying to figure out if there were any more parallels between his craft and hers. When Arwin finally finished melting everything down and reforming it, he turned the small ingots back to a single piece and hammered it out with Verdant Blaze to hopefully remove any last specs of impurity that had managed to evade him thus far.

He then set about forming the metal into the closest thing he could get to teeth. From what he’d observed with Lillia, the majority of the chewing process was grinding. That may have been because she was trying to eat something that was only a step away from being a piece of charcoal, but making something that ground food down sounded considerably more straightforward than a full functioning jaw replica.

“Okay. I’m just about ready for you to help. I’m going to begin shaping and pushing intent into the bowl,” Arwin said. A thought struck him and he froze. “Wait. How can you touch the metal? It’s going to be hot.”

“Oh, shit. I don’t know how, but that slipped my mind as well. You just hold it with your bare hands.” Lillia’s brow furrowed and she chewed her lower lip. “I don’t always use my hands when I cook. It still works when I’m passing the intent through a knife or the like. I can’t swing your hammer, but can I somehow pass it directly through you? If I’m in contact with you then it might work.”

“Can’t hurt to try. Just stay back. I don’t want any hot metal getting on you.”

Lillia moved to stand behind him and pressed herself to his back, wrapping her arms around his waist. “How’s this?”

“Your arms are exposed. They could get burned by sparks.”

Lillia adjusted her position and stuck her hands under his shirt, pulling it over them. “There. That should be enough, right?”

“I should really get a leather apron or something, but this should be okay. I don’t need to use the hammer too much anyway,” Arwin muttered. It was slightly harder to concentrate than he’d expected with Lillia completely pressed against his back, but he refused to let himself get distracted.

“Then let’s do it. We’re focusing on imbuing the intent of eating and getting a lot of energy out of it, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll focus on the aspect of breaking things down and consuming then,” Arwin said. “You focus on making this prepare the energy to be extracted. It’ll be a set item, so try to visualize that as well.”

“I don’t think food comes as set items, but I’ll do what I can. I’m ready when you are.”

Arwin nodded. Then he got to it. He opted to lean into simplicity and started by preparing the flat piece of Brightsteel with his hammer, folding it over to thicken the metal. He worked slowly at first to make sure Lillia’s wasn’t getting hurt. When it became clear that she was fine, he started to move faster.

He used [Scourge] and the heightened [Soul Flame] in the hearth to form the metal like taffy into the rough shape of a large, high-rimmed bowl. Throughout the entire time, he kept his intent focused and pushed magic from his palms into the piece.

His stomach tingled where Lillia’s arms touched his bare skin. He couldn’t tell if that was due to energy passing from her into him or if it was just because of their position. Arwin didn’t have the liberty wonder which one it was.

Breaking his focus would result in ruining the item they were making, and so he pushed any unrelated thoughts to the back of his head. All he could do was believe that their efforts were working and press on.

Once the bowl was roughly formed, Arwin scooped up several Wyrmling fangs. When he envisioned hunger, nothing fit that more than a group of starving small Wyrms. He focused on those feelings as he pressed the teeth into bowl and worked the metal around them. He then made a second, thinner bowl out of Ivorin and melded it with the first by pinning it in place with several Ivorin bolts and pressing the metals together with [Scourge] while they heated in the roaring flame of the hearth.

Ivorin was a tougher metal than Brightsteel, so it would hold up to being used as a millstone for longer than the latter would. Once the bowl was roughly complete, Arwin moved to the second piece. Even though they were separate, he viewed them as two parts of a single object.

The Mesh complied and made no move to attempt to make itself known beyond the growing tingles at the tips of his fingers. Fortunately, Arwin didn’t have to make it wait for long. The second piece was much easier than the first.

It was little more than a large, heavy Ivorin ball. Arwin made it exclusively with [Scourge] and the heat from his [Soul Flame]. He put another Wyrmling tooth in the center of the ball, just to make sure that the entire piece was both connected and completely focused on the proper goal.

I’ve generally used the monster parts a lot more literally. Teeth and claws for sharpness or ripping elements, not for hunger or more personality related things. That personality has kind of shown up sometimes, but it wasn’t intentional. If this works, it’ll widen what I can craft even further.

Arwin continued to pour energy into the bowl. Lillia pressed against his back, her fingers pressing into his skin. The tingling sensation around his waist had spread to cover his back as well, and there was no doubt about it being more than just her presence now.

The Mesh sparked and swirled all around them. It poured through Arwin’s body and down his hands into the ball as he shaped it. Sweat rolled down the side of his face and he dragged power from his reserves like a dehydrated man kneeling at an oasis.

Surprisingly, even though this was one of the most energy-hungry projects he’d taken on, Arwin found that his reserves were still over half-full. There was no time to wonder about it. Energy hummed around his hands and ball he’d finished.

He set it down in the bowl, then pressed out a small hole in the bottom of the bowl. He quickly made one last piece — a Brightsteel disk. He pinned the disk into the bottom of the bowl with a pin that didn’t quite go all the way through, leaving the Ivorin on its top untouched.

The Mesh pulsed in conjunction with the beat of the heart they’d moved to back to the corner of the smithy. It was finished.

Arwin let his hands fall. Lillia poked her head under his arm as the Mesh rushed forth and poured into the piece they’d made together, giving it life.

[Millstone Maw: Epic Quality] has been forged. Forging a magical item has granted you energy.

Your Tier has raised by 1 rank.

The magical energy filling your body has grown dense enough to reinforce your physical form. You are now harder to injure and injuries will heal at a slightly faster rate than those of a normal man. Minor poisons and illnesses are no longer able to take purchase in your body.

Achievement: [Couple of Crafters - I] has been earned.

[Couple of Crafters - I] – Awarded for forging your first item by linking your desires together with your partner. Get a room. Effects: The dissonance between you and your partner’s intent has been reduced for the first item you made together. Repeated instances of this Achievement are possible and rewards scale with its tier.

“I got an Achievement!” Lillia exclaimed just as Arwin finished reading his own achievement. He felt the tips of his ears redden and cleared his throat.

“Yeah. I did too. Ranked up as well. You also got the the Couple of Crafters one, I take it?”

Lilla nodded. Arwin got tired of keeping his arm in the air and let it fall around her shoulders.

“I wonder what the other rewards are,” Lillia mused, resting her head against his shoulder. “Do you think we could replicate this for cooking? I’ve already got so many new ideas I want to try.”

“I can certainly give it a shot, but I’m no chef. We should probably finish this first. Have you taken a look at if it works yet?”

“No,” Lillia admitted sheepishly. “I’m a little scared. It wasn’t really easy to make. What if we screwed up?”

“The message from the Mesh implies we didn’t screw it completely. But, if we did, then we just make it again. I wouldn’t mind. Every attempt is a step along the road of becoming a better smith.”

Lillia scrunched her nose, then grinned. “I guess I wouldn’t mind doing it again. You haven’t looked either yet, have you?”

It was Arwin’s turn to look sheepish. “No. I was distracted with the Rank up and the achievement. And you.”

“You’re allowed to be distracted by me. I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“It was one.”

Lillia laughed, then nudged him with her head. “Come on. Let’s find out if this thing is useful. The anticipation is going to kill me.”

The two of them looked away from each other and directed their gaze toward the bowl on the anvil beside them. And, as the heart continued to thump away in the corner of the Infernal Armory, the Mesh swirled forth to reveal the fruits of their efforts.