Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 227-228 (Patreon)

Before Arwin could even respond to Wallace, Lillia’s expression went flat. Her lips thinned and the light in the smithy dimmed as shadows gathered around her and rose up the walls. Out of the corner of his eyes, Arwin spotted Reya and Rodrick through the door in the main room of the smithy as their hands shot to their weapons.

“I’d reword that statement, because it sounded an awful lot like a threat,” Lillia said, her voice as cold as ice. “And I’m not much of a fan of anyone that threatens the people I care about.”

“No point mincing words, lass,” Wallace replied with a shrug. He tapped his hammer on his shoulder and shook his head. “I got a duty to my people. We keep our teachings under wraps for a reason. Can’t have a madman running around and making dwarven weaponry — even if it’s just a poor replica of it. Too many people can get hurt.”

“He’s not a madman,” Lilia said.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?” Wallace asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the heart, then let out a grunt. “And I’m not so sure about that. You tellin’ me anything but a madman would make an abomination like this?”

“What’s so weird about it?” Arwin protested. He wasn’t nearly as offended at Wallace’s concern about this abilities as he was with the insinuation that he and Lillia had made something that revulsive. “It was a perfectly logical idea. Are you saying you’d waste a magic heart that beat on its own? Anyone in their right mind would try to use it as an engine if they could.”

“It was a still-beating heart! Outside of a body!” Wallace exclaimed. “Do you even know what this is?”

“No,” Arwin admitted. “But you clearly do. Care to enlighten me?”

“A dungeon heart is a part of a monster that was severely corrupted by magical energy after they died. The heart continues to absorb magical power, the desires of the monster imprinted on it keeping it alive but has no way to actually advance or accomplish anything on its own. They’re functionally immensely powerful magical amplifiers. Dungeon hearts are generally attached to or consumed by depraved fools willing to bond themselves with monsters to gain great strength. I’ve never heard of one getting attached to a blasted building.”

“Ah,” Arwin said. “You know what? That makes a bit of sense. But why was my smithy’s main goal finding a grumpy dwarf?”

“Forget your building’s goals! You’ve got a dungeon heart in it powerful enough to open a portal,” Wallace exclaimed. “Why would you try to use something like that for anything? You should have crushed it! What man looks at a thing like that and doesn’t realize it’s clearly of vile origin?”

“Now you’re just generalizing things. An object is only as evil as the purpose you use it for.” Arwin crossed his arms in front of his chest. “A sword can kill and protect alike. Claiming something is inherently evil isn’t true. I’d be more agreeable with you if the Mesh had said the heart loved slaughtering children or some shit, but it’s just a heart. I had no way to know more, and unless you’ve got proof that it’s somehow evil, I’m not going to assume it’s anything but that.”

“This is how I know you’re a whelp,” Wallace said with a shake of his head. “That attitude is one of a naïve child that has not borne true agony. There are things in this world that are pure evil. I don’t need the Mesh tellin’ me what to think.”

“Like what?” Arwin challenged. “Give me one example of something that’s pure evil that hasn’t actually done an evil act that you can verify in any way. How do you know for certain?”

Wallace let out a sharp breath and hoisted his hammer, pointing it over his shoulder. Its head rippled with energy as it started to heat, turning from gray to a molten yellow-orange. Then he jerked his chin in Lillia’s direction.

“What about the vermin race the lass is pretending to be a part of?” Wallace asked. “I’ve seen what they do to their foes. I’ve been in a few of the battles against their kind myself. Watched them tear good people to shreds and drag them screaming back to their camps. The world would be better off without their vile taint. You’d know what I was talking about if you were on those fields yourself.”

Arwin’s back tensed, but he didn’t let any of his true thoughts show on his face. Lillia’s hands tightened at her sides, but she said nothing.

If only Wallace had the slightest clue about what he was talking about. He might have been in a few of the battles, but I was there for every single one of them for the last dozen or so years. He might know a lot about smithing, but he doesn’t know any more about the truth of the war than anyone else does.

Arwin didn’t hold it against the dwarf. The Adventurer’s Guild had convinced the entire kingdom that they were at war with an evil, heartless race. Nobody had ever had the opportunity to learn more.

Nobody other than Blake.

His expression tightened at the thought and he blew out a short breath. If Blake had figured it out, then the rest of them just weren’t trying enough. It was a mistake he’d made once. He wouldn’t make it again — and he wouldn’t let the people around him make it either. Even if Wallace wasn’t completely out of line in his thoughts, he wasn’t going to sit around and let him insult Lillia to her face.

“If you want to test me, then test me,” Arwin said. “I think you’d be surprised to find how little people actually know. Half of what we believe to be fact is just reinforced assumptions. Power is what you make of it.”

 “That’s what everyone wants to believe,” Wallace said. The head of his hammer grew brighter as power rolled off it in waves. A whump shook the smithy’s walls as an arc of flame leapt off its head and splashed across the cobblestone ground.

The flame spread in a straight line, crackling as it rose up to form a rectangular doorway. Fire filled in the details within it, the swirls of molten light changing to form into solid shapes before fading away and revealing the inside of the obsidian smithy.

“Hold on,” Lillia said. She took a step forward. “Why do you have to go back over there? You’re just testing his smithing abilities, aren’t you? You can do that here.”

“I don’t see any lava here,” Wallace replied. “Can’t test a dwarven smith without lava. Not possible.”

“How are we supposed to be able to trust you?” Reya asked, stepping through the door with her hand still on the hilt of Wyrmhunger. “You could just be trying to isolate Arwin.”

“Me?” Wallace let out a burst of laughter. “Do I look like a robber or a murderer to you? I’m a smith.”

“Yeah, as if I haven’t seen what a smith can do in a fight,” Reya said drolly. “And you were tossing lava around just a little while ago. Making yourself sound weak just because it’s convenient isn’t going to convince anyone.”

Wallace pursed his thick lips and the glow from the head of his hammer faded. He let it lower and studied Reya in silence for a second. “Right enough. You aren’t getting more from me, though. I can’t test the big oaf outside of my workshop. It’s not possible.”

“I was under the impression you’d be more interested in testing his personality than his actual smithing skills,” Lillia said, crossing her arms. “After all that talk about good and evil, does it really matter how good he is at making weapons if he ends up using them for the wrong reason?”

“The quality of a dwarf shows in his work,” Wallace replied. “It’ll be quite apparent what kind of man he is when I see what he can make in a proper forge.”

“And if you decide you aren’t a fan of him? Who are you to judge if someone is good or evil?” Lillia pressed. “Because if you think we’re going to let you just waltz off with him and do whatever you want, you’re sorely mistaken. I don’t care if you’re a dwarven smith or a horned rabbit. You’re no more judge than you are executioner.”

“Damn it, woman. I’ll just bring him back here if I don’t like him,” Wallace exclaimed, throwing his hands up and nearly launching his hammer through the ceiling in the process. “Did you all miss the part where I’d teach him proper smithing if he’s not an evil bastard?”

“Actually, I was quite looking forward to that bit,” Arwin hedged, but Lillia cut him off with a sharp look.

“I don’t care what you might teach him,” she said, striding forward to loom over Wallace. She bent down, then thrust her finger into his armored chest. “I’m coming with you.”

“Absolutely not,” the dwarf replied with a firm shake of his head. “You’re not one of our kind, and you aren’t a smith neither. This is a sacred ritual, not a spectator debacle. I—”

“You let me come, or the only way you ever taste my drinks again is when I shove a bottle up your ass.”

Wallace hesitated. A second passed. Then another. Lillia’s eyes bored into him like twin blades. Finally, he coughed into his fist. “Perhaps an exception can be made.”

“Great. I’m coming too,” Reya said.

“Me as well,” Rodrick added, poking his head through the door.

Olive and Anna both squeezed through the entrance of the smithy at the exact same time and added their own voices into the mix.

“I did not invite the lot of you,” Wallace snapped. He pointed his hammer at them. “Off with you, rats. One spectator is already breaking tradition. I will not be allowing four more.”

“Five, actually. I would rip my own heart free of its cage if I allowed Lillian and her consort to wander off with a creature such as yourself.” A new voice cut through the air, words prim and proper.

Everyone turned to the entrance of the smithy to find Madiv standing by the open door, his arms crossed before his chest and eyebrow arched.

“Seriously?” Wallace asked. “How many of you are there? Do you just grow from the floor boards like moss?”

“Please let me in,” Madiv said, his tone considerably lower.

“You can come inside,” Olive said.

Madiv stepped inside and gave Olive a short nod before turning his attention back to the dwarf.

“We will not allow you to leave with our guild leader. What’s the difference between one spectator and a few more?”

“You and I have very different definitions of few,” Wallace replied. He squinted up at Arwin. “Do you have any more? Or is this the lot of them?”

Before Arwin could answer, yet another person skidded up to the door. They were all already conveniently looking in the right direction as Esmarelda braced her arm on the side of the doorframe and leaned against it, breathing heavily to catch her breath.

“I heard a commotion and Madiv went running. What’s going on?” Esmerelda rasped.

“Another one!” Wallace exclaimed. “How? Where are you all coming from?”

Esmerelda’s eyes snapped over to the dwarf. They widened and she hurriedly straightened up, brushing her clothes off and clearing her throat as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

“A dwarf!”

“An old bag,” Wallace replied.

“That I may be, but I’m an old bag with wares,” Esmerelda said, a wry smile splitting her features. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of your kind, but I vividly recall you have quite a taste for liquor. I happen to have some old dwarven mead. Sealed. Not touched in nearly a century. Perhaps I could—”

“Tempting, but I must pass. I have a duty to attend to,” Wallace said. He glanced at Lillia out of the corners of his eyes. “And I believe my tastes may have been permanently spoiled.”

Esmerelda gaped at him. She looked from the dwarf to Madiv, then back to the dwarf. Then she rubbed her eyes.

Lillia nodded to the portal. “There’s a bottle with your name on it if you just teach Arwin and skip all the other crap.”

“That would be a bribe,” Wallace said, his eyes narrowing. “Do you think my honor so weak?”

“Two bottles.”

Wallace hesitated for an instant. Then he swore under his breath and coughed into his fist. “Let’s just get this over already. You’ve ruined the weight of the process, you know that? The sanctity of the ritual is destroyed. It is meant to be revered, not mocked.”

“Does that mean we can all come?” Reya asked hopefully. “If it’s dead, it can’t hurt to beat the corpse.”

“No.” Wallace leveled a glare at her. Then he stepped through the portal and sent an expectant look back at Arwin and Lillia. “You two. That’s it. Nobody else.”

“Can you even come?” Arwin asked with a frown. “I mean, leaving your tavern—”

“As long as it’s not for too long, I’ll be fine,” Lillia said.

The rest of the Menagerie looked prepared to argue, but Arwin lifted a hand. She’d made her decision, and having all of them pile in after him would just leave their street undefended.

“It’s fine,” Arwin said, giving them a smile. “Don’t think so poorly of me. I’d like to think I won’t have any trouble passing. Wallace isn’t going to have a reason to fight, so there’s nothing to be concerned about.”

All the wind left everyone’s sails in a fell swoop.

“Fine,” Reya muttered. “But you better come back, okay?”

“Do you really think he could keep us from coming back to you guys?” Arwin asked with a smile, ruffling Reya’s hair, much to her annoyance. “We’ll be back soon enough.

“I’m right here, you know,” Wallace said.

“You’re the cause of the problem,” Lillia said, crossing her arms. “You don’t get to complain. Not if you want to dine at my inn again.”

“You can’t keep using that as a threat.”

“Watch me.”

Wallace raised a finger. Then he lowered it and pursed his lips, muttering a curse under his breath. Arwin sent an amused glance at Lillia, then gave the rest of the Menagerie a curt nod.

“Keep things safe for us while we’re gone, would you?” Arwin asked. “We’ll be back before dinner.”

And, with that, he and Lillia followed Wallace into the portal.

Chapter 228

As soon as Arwin and Lillia emerged onto the obsidian floor of Wallace’s workshop, the flaming portal shrank in on itself behind them before vanishing with a pop. Arwin looked around the smithy, not even bothering to hide his interest.

It was enormous. He hadn’t gotten a look at the ceiling before. It towered far above them, a curved dome of glistening obsidian. The light from the bubbling pool of lava in the center of the room reflected from the top, illuminating everything as if Wallace had trapped the very sun within the room’s walls.   

The air was hot and dry. There didn’t seem to be a single drop of humidity in the air, and Arwin could almost taste the heat on his mouth. Even a scorching desert day wouldn’t have had anything on the smithy. At least the desert would have had a chance for wind.

 Wallace headed over to the wall of tools and hung his hammer from it before turning back to them and thrusting a finger in Lillia’s direction.

“You stay out of the way. I can’t have you interfering or you’re liable to get toasted on accident. Lava is not a forgiving medium to work with. If you get too close, you might get turned crispy.”

“I’ll keep my distance,” Lillia promised as she walked over to the wall and crossed her arms, leaning against it. “Just pretend like I’m not here. I might as well not be so long as you don’t do anything threatening.”

Despite her threat, Arwin wasn’t sure how much Lillia would be capable of here. There was nearly no shadow to work with because of how brightly the room was lit and she was away from her tavern. She didn’t have access to the majority of her powers.

We’ll just have to make sure this never gets into a fight in the first place. I’m here to learn smithing, not to try and kill Wallace.

“So where do we get started?” Arwin asked, rubbing his hands together. “And do keep in mind that we’ve got deadlines. We can’t be missing dinner.”

Wallace walked over to the white anvil and rested a hand on it as he arched a bushy eyebrow at Arwin.

“Let’s assume you’ve actually got potential and aren’t a threat to everyone around you. How is missing dinner what ‘yer worried about?”

“You said it was your duty to teach me, and I’m not going to learn everything in a day,” Arwin said with an easy shrug. “That means you’ll come back — and that means I don’t have to miss dinner. I told you, Lillia’s cooking is better than her brewing.”

And I need to eat magical items to survive. I don’t really want to broadcast that to you, but I’ll have no choice if I have to stand around here forever.

Wallace stared at Arwin for a second, his expression inscrutable beneath his beard. Then he let out a grunt and shook his head. “You sure you don’t have any dwarf blood in you?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“We’ll see.” Wallace slapped the top of the anvil. “Come over here. If you want to have anything done by the time it gets to dinner, we don’t have time to spare. We’ll be getting started immediately.”

Arwin walked over to stand beside Wallace. Heat singed the hairs on his arms as he drew closer to the lava. He blinked as he felt his eyes drying out, immediately wishing that he’d brought something to drink with him. This wasn’t his own [Soul Flame], so he wasn’t resistant to its intense temperature.

“Do you just form the lava into things? I’d have thought you need a mold or something for that,” Arwin said as he looked around the relatively empty forge around them. Aside from the tools and the lines running through the ground, carrying thin rivers of lava throughout the room, there weren’t any specialized tools that he could see.

Wallace pierced him with a flat stare. “Did you want to teach?”

Arwin cleared his throat. “No. I’m listening.”

“A dwarven smith needs one tool.” Wallace turned his back on the anvil and approached the bubbling pool of lava. He knelt, a thin layer of [Soul Flame] racing to cover his hands, and scooped a handful of molten rock up. The dwarf turned back to Arwin. “Lava. Everything else is optional.”

“You’ve got a lot of tools if you only need one.”

“There’s a difference between need and want,” Wallace replied gruffly. He made his way back over to the anvil, working the pool of magma between his hands like taffy. “And I was not always a master smith. Molten forging is not a simple process. Starting at the extreme is unlikely to go well. There are many aspects that must be considered. You must contain the lava. You must focus your intent. You must purge every impurity from the materials you work with while keeping their structure preserved within your heart. You must keep the lava hot and, in some cases, flowing.”

The dwarf walked around the anvil as he spoke, then looked down to the spiderwebbing lines of lava running through the room before glancing up at Arwin in a clear invitation of a question.

“Tell me,” Wallace said, tapping his foot beside one of the magma lines. “What do you believe this is for? Why have such a complex pattern when we could just dip our hands into the pool behind me?”

Arwin thought for a few seconds. Wallace didn’t seem like the type of teacher that wanted him to just toss questions out at random. He studied the pattern of the small rivers on the floor intently. Not all of them were the same size. The farther they got from the lake, the thinner they got and the less they connected to each other.

“Temperature control, maybe?”

“Correct. As long as you’re standing by the anvil, the lava running through the paths closest to you is at the ideal temperature. A true dwarven smith can manage perfect smithing with nothing but a pool of lava, but novices need help keeping the heat controlled.”

Wallace shifted the lava to one of his palms. He flicked his other, and a small ingot of metal appeared from thin air in a shimmer of purple energy. Arwin’s eyes widened slightly. Wallace had some form of extradimensional space.

Had a lot of those when I was a Hero. Not exactly impossibly rare, but I haven’t seen a normal one in a while. He’s definitely got a good amount of magical gear. I wonder if he made that himself. I’d love to know how to make an extradimensional… well, anything.

“So you use the lava to melt the metal and remove the impurities from it?” Arwin asked.

“That is the first — and easiest — of the steps,” Wallace said. The lava in his hand bubbled, then started to curl up into a bowl. More lava flowed up from the river, twisting like streamers of smoke as it flooded into the growing hemisphere of molten rock in his hands. Wallace then set the bar of metal on it. The metal hissed as the bubbling orange-red lava swirled up to swallow it whole. He looked back to Arwin, then tapped his foot on the ground.

“So what’s the hard part?” Arwin asked. It seemed that Wallace enjoyed stopping to make him ask questions, but only the right ones.

“Hard parts,” Wallace corrected with a small smirk. “The first is infusing your lava. It must become part of you. An extension of your hands. We do not merely use the lava for its heat. It is molten rock with no identity of its own. That allows a dwarf to fill the lava with their own desire and intent. It is our interface with the metal.”

Arwin nodded slowly. “So intent isn’t just for the metal, but the lava as well.”

“Yes. You fill the lava with your intent, and through that, you can hear the song of your materials. Their form may be lost in the lava, or it may not. It does not matter. No matter what happens, you must know its song.” Wallace summoned another piece of metal from the air, this one a dull yellow hue. He added it to the ball of lava swirling in his fingers without taking his eyes off Arwin. “And every material you add sings its own song. To successfully connect them, you must harmonize their songs with your intent. You must find the connection. Should you manage to do this, the preparation will be complete.”

“Preparation?” Arwin asked, nearly choking on his own words. “That’s just the preparation?”

Wallace smiled. “Great effort must be made to make great equipment, and no smith is greater than a dwarf. The next step is to free your harmonized material from the lava once it has cooled.”

“Smack it with a hammer?” Arwin guessed, well aware that the answer was probably going to be a bit more complex than that.

Wallace’s smile fell away. “You can do better than that.”

“The song,” Lillia said from her spot at the corner of the room. “He’s got to hit it to the tune of the song… or something?”

“Your lass has dwarf in her, I just know it,” Wallace muttered. The twisting ball of magma above his hand rapidly cooled, some of the light leaving it as it turned to a mass of gray rock. “She’s correct. You must speak to the metal in every step of the process. You must sing to it. And, once it is free, only then you can forge.”

It seems I’ve been getting dwarven magic for a long time. My Title, Stonesinger… it lets me communicate with materials, but it’s got singing in the name. Have I been failing to use it to its full abilities?

“I understand,” Arwin said, wonder and excitement intermixing in his stomach. “Though I suspect it may be a little easier to conceptualize than to actually do.”

“So it is,” Wallace said with a wry smile. He set his cooled ball of stone on the anvil and pressed his hands together. He pulled them apart to reveal a miniscule blue ingot pinched between his fingers. It was of such a faint shade that it was barely even distinguishable from gray. Arwin nearly bust out laughing. The ingot was so small that it was barely larger than a finger. Wallace held it in his palm reverently. “Do you know what this is, boy?”

“Absolutely no idea,” Arwin answered honestly.

“This is Mithril,” Wallace breathed. “One of the most valuable metals in the world, and yet its properties are worthless in the hands of any but the most capable smiths. Mithril is a reflection. It reveals the true soul of the smith that crafts with it. Every single part of it.”

“I think I see where this is going,” Arwin said.

Wallace nodded. “I do not expect you to master dwarven crafting today. It takes a lifetime to truly master it — but the basics, you should be capable of. I will temporarily take you on as a student. I will teach you until you can craft an item with Mithril and your true character is laid bare. Then we will determine the path of the future. How does that ring?”

“I hold no ill intentions to anyone that doesn’t seek to hurt me or my friends,” Arwin said. He had absolutely no idea what the Mithril would — or could — reveal about him, but he wasn’t about to leave without learning dwarven smithing. He had nothing to hide about his current desires. Arwin extended his hand. “I accept.”

“Then I, Wallace Gentletongue, formally extend the offer of apprenticeship to you. My knowledge is yours, and your hammer is mine,” Wallace said, taking Arwin’s hand in a grip like bands of iron and giving it a powerful shake. “May it be so until you have been judged.”