Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 251-252 (Patreon)

“When you say you underplayed your abilities, just how much were we talking?” Arwin asked slowly, studying Rodrick in a new light. It had always been pretty obvious that there was more to Rodrick than there had first appeared. Arwin didn’t know much about the Secret Eye or the Inquisitors, but from what Rodrick and Anna had just told everyone, the organization was a lot more powerful than any random assassin’s guild. If Rodrick actually had all of their techniques and knowledge…

“I have a network throughout the city. They give me information on just about everything I ask them to. I pay them with food that I steal from the kitchen — sorry, Lillia. I always pay for it,” Rodrick said, rubbing the back of his head.

Lillia gawked at him. “I knew I was running out of ingredients faster than I should have been!”

“It was for a good cause.” Rodrick raised his hands defensively. “Do you know how hard it is to keep a bunch of beggars and urchins happy? If your network is pissed at you, then they’re going to do the bare minimum. But if they’re eating well, they go out of their way. They never pass up on information and every single thing comes back to you. It’s not even a fancy trick. It’s just being nice.”

“Easy to be nice when it’s not your food,” Lillia grumbled. “But the extra money definitely doesn’t hurt. I did think it was a little weird when you were so insistent to look over inventory for me. I thought you were just bored.”

“Hold on. Your whole network is just a bunch of street kids?” Reya asked, squinting at Rodrick. “That’s it?”

Rodrick smiled and stepped away from the counter. He crossed his hands behind his back as he walked over to Reya. “That’s the exact response everyone has, Reya. Nobody cares about them. You know that better than anyone. They’re practically invisible, and they all talk. A group of raggedy kids and crotchety old folks can manage far more than any professional spy can.”

“You said that Melissa had gotten involved with the Falling Blades. How’d you manage to find out in time to do anything?” Arwin asked, massaging the bridge of his nose as he struggled to gather his thoughts. “They work fast. I’d have thought by the time you heard anything it would be too late.”

“Everyone in the network knows someone else,” Rodrick explained. “And they aren’t meant to report directly back to me. They pass the information along. It’s much faster that way. And I wasn’t waiting on them to attack Melissa. I was waiting on the prick who hired them to start moving. Easier to watch for the cause than the effect.”

Arwin blinked. Then he let out a thoughtful grunt. “Huh. That makes a fair amount of sense. Melissa is fine, then?”

“She’s fine,” Rodrick confirmed. “Your armor worked great. Anna and I saw a lot of it go down. Killed the extra ones to make sure she didn’t get overwhelmed. She didn’t manage her magical energy too well, but you can’t expect too much from an inexperienced kid.”

Anna winced slightly at his words. She clearly didn’t care to be reminded of what she’d done — but there was no regret in her eyes either. Arwin blew out a slow breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“How much else have you been able to find out? How long have you had a network like this?”

“Quite some time. I got it properly running around the time when the Ardent Guild showed up,” Rodrick replied. His features darkened for a moment. “I think they’re up to something, by the way. Not sure what, but they’ve shifted their activities. I haven’t managed to glean exactly what it is they’re searching for, and I’ve been screwing with their information gathering until I can.”

“How?” Reya asked.

“Eh, the usual ways. A pan to the back of the head, some well-placed old man nudity, taking the place of an Ardent Guildsmember’s wife and getting their guard rotation information from him before leaving him locked in the dungeon beneath their house for her to find when she gets back from finding what happened to their missing dog.”

They all stared at Rodrick in abject horror.

“What?” Rodrick asked. “The dog was fine! I just had someone take it to the butcher and feed it a bunch of steaks that he was going to toss out. That was the best meal the poor mutt has had all year. I’m not a monster!”

 “I… am suddenly starting to want less answers to my questions,” Arwin muttered.

“I’m not,” Lillia said. “What in the world are the Ardent members up to? Why do they have dungeons beneath their houses? And how have you not been discovered? Surely that would have been reported.”

Forget that! How does a massive man like Rodrick pretend to be someone’s wife? And how is Anna okay with this?

Rodrick tilted his head to the side. “I’ll give you one guess as to why a couple might have a dungeon below their house. And they didn’t report it because I’m rather convincing. I’m sure that explains it.”

That did not explain it. Everyone exchanged a glance, but Rodrick looked so confident about his answer that nobody could quite manage to actually word another question for several long seconds.

“I… I’m not really sure what I’m meant to say here,” Arwin said. “The information you’ve been able to get us has been instrumental. I’m not sure I fully understand any part of you, and the more I learn, the less I get. But it works, and that’s what matters. Keep up the good work, I guess?”

“With pleasure,” Rodrick said.

“Maybe with a little less pleasure,” Olive muttered. “There’s something deeply wrong with you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your job.” Rodrick crossed his arms and leaned against a wall. “But I trust you can see why I don’t go around advertising this.”

“I really need to know one more thing,” Lillia said. “Is this really how the Secret Eye gathers information? Somehow, I can’t see them dressing up in other people’s clothes and feeding children. They seem… I don’t know. More sinister?”

“No,” Rodrick said, his tone dropping an octave as his eyes darkened. “They have other strategies. But don’t mistake the Secret Eye and the Inquisiton. They are not the same. The Secret Eye are largely what they claim to be. Impartial observers. The Inquisition is their shadow arm. I know what both of them do — some of it firsthand. I just choose the tactics that I find most appropriate to every situation.”

“Can you teach me?” Reya asked.

“No,” Rodrick, Olive, and Lillia all said at once.

“Aw,” Reya muttered. “I thought it could be useful.”

“You’re already more than useful as you are,” Rodrick said as he pushed away from the wall and ruffled Reya’s hair. “You have your own path that you’re finding. Don’t follow mine.”

“Please,” Olive added.

A laugh rolled through the room and the remaining tension in the air finally lifted the rest of the way. Reya pushed herself up from her seat and that triggered a chain reaction in the others as everyone rose to their feet and brushed imaginary dirt off themselves.

“Thanks for hearing us out,” Rodrick said, wrapping an arm around Anna’s shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. “It takes a lot of weight off our shoulders. I’m sure Anna will want to talk more about this later, once she’s gathered herself a bit more.”

“I can do it now,” Anna said, wiping her sleeve off on the back of her shirt and straightening her back out. Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she’d managed to suppress the majority of her emotions.

“I know you could, but you’d prefer not to. I’ve seen you spend an hour mulling over where we want to eat, and this is a bit more important than that,” Rodrick said.

“Nobody’s going to push for more than you can give, Anna,” Arwin said. “Lillia and I especially. We know how hard it can be to probe into the past.”

Anna gave him a small nod. “Then I will wait. Thank you.”

“Should we be worried at all about the Falling Blades?” Reya asked. “Did you kill all of them? Are more going to come?”

“Oh, no. That’s handled.” Rodrick shook his head. “I pretended to be from the Ardent guild when we interfered, and nobody even saw that Anna was the one throwing the daggers. Nobody will be able to tie it to us.”

“Wait. I thought Anna was just a poison maker,” Olive said. “When did she learn how to throw daggers?”

“I was an Inquisitor,” Anna said quietly. “Even though I never left, I still got their training.”

“She’s damn good with thrown weapons,” Rodrick provided. “Really, she could have—”

Anna shot Rodrick a look and his mouth snapped shut. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “I highly doubt the Blades will take action. It’s funny, actually. You know that drunk homeless bloke that hovers around sometimes? The guy that brought Melissa to us.”

“Yeah,” Arwin said, blinking at the abrupt change in topic. “What about him?”

“Well, half my information on the Falling Blades came from him,” Rodrick said. “He told me just about everything I wanted to know about them and more. I had to promise that we wouldn’t dig to find out how he knew about them, so I don’t know where he got the info.”

“Interesting,” Arwin said with a frown. “Well, if that’s the deal, we’ll have to honor it. Perhaps he’ll decide to come clean one day. In the spirit of honesty.”

That got him several dry looks.

“Right,” Reya said. “Definitely.”

Lillia laughed. “The optimism is good, Arwin. We need it. Especially now. Does anyone else have any major revelations to drop on us? Because, if not, I’m starving. I think some breakfast is in order.”

 The Menagerie exchanged looks. Then every eye in the room went back to Lillia.

“I think breakfast sounds good,” Anna said, a faint smile crossing over her features. “Thanks, Lillia.”

Chapter 252

Wallace and Esmerelda returned in time for breakfast. Judging by the frazzled look on Esmerelda’s face and the mild annoyance in Wallace’s, the old woman’s marketing pitches had been no more effective than they normally were. Any further argument they may have had was quickly silenced when Lillia emerged from the kitchen food for everyone.

The Menagerie mowed through their meal, and it wasn’t long before everyone dispersed to get to the respective work that their days held. Anna and Rodrick headed back to their rooms, while Olive and Reya broke away to train. Esmerelda and Madiv, as they usually did, got locked in an argument that marked their place in the city long after they’d strode away from the Devil’s Den.

Lillia and Arwin split ways as well. Arwin set off to the forge while she temporarily closed the inn and headed for the market square to locate Ridley and figure out if he was still in search of work.

And, for the next few days, the Menagerie slipped back into a routine. They all had more than enough work to keep them occupied. Arwin had a number of old orders to finish making for people on the waitlist. It wasn’t the most inspiring work, but it paid incredibly well — and money never hurt anyone.

Lillia got the construction with Ridley started up. She kept the inn open in the meantime, as he was only working on the second floor. A few familiar faces started showing up in the tavern throughout the day. Word of the Menagerie and their street continued to spread through Milten.

Reya and Madiv alternated taking up post outside his smithy and telling everyone that swung by that he’d be accepting orders at some point in the near future, though they made no promises as to when or who. That proved to be enough to placate the crowds. Arwin doubted he could keep that strategy up forever without losing interest. But, even if he did, that would be fine. It wasn’t the interest of the masses he truly needed anymore.

Arwin needed to push himself to grow. And if he wanted to do that, he needed to be making magical items, not normal ones. He needed quality clients. Ones that had the money to pay for something truly worthwhile — and also ones that he wouldn’t regret arming.

Unfortunately, he had precious little time to spend doing anything other than working. When Arwin wasn’t dealing with the backlog of orders, he was practicing Dwarven Smithing. He wanted to get a much better handle of what he was doing before he started adding Cursed items into the mix.

Wallace occasionally swung by from his smithy to check on him, but the dwarf largely left Arwin to his own devices. Much of the awkward air had dissipated over the last few days. Lillia clearly hadn’t completely forgiven the dwarf, but she hadn’t banned him from the tavern either. Wallace respected that enough to avoid sticking around all day — and he had probably better things to do — but he still swung by almost every night to get himself a bottle of ale. That suited all of them just fine. His advice was more than welcome, and if Arwin had been planning to continue down the path of a pure Dwarven Smith, he strongly suspected that he would have had few reservations in becoming the dwarf’s official apprentice.

The days were hectic, but they were peaceful. Not much of any real excitement happened and that suited the Menagerie just fine. But the light of peace did not come without a shadow. Rodrick continued to keep tabs on the Ardent Guild, and Arwin wasn’t so sure he liked the reports they were getting.

The Guild was still in search of something. Rodrick had yet to figure out exactly what it was. He didn’t know if the guild leader had somehow figured out that their sources were compromised or if they were just being extra-secretive, but whatever they were looking for was somewhere in Milten. Arwin and Rodrick both had a sneaking suspicion whatever they were looking for probably had something to do with Jessen.

It was the best guess either of them could come up with. The Ardent Guild had shown up shortly after Jessen had and immediately gone after the dungeon to which he’d had a key. It wasn’t a huge stretch of imagination to assume that Jessen might have been wrapped up in something a little more significant than they’d thought.

If that was the case, there was only a single thing that Arwin could think of that might have drawn the Ardent Guild’s attention. The Dungeon Heart he’d used to accidentally bring his forge to life. That particular heart probably wasn’t getting found anytime soon. It was still buried within the walls of the Infernal Armory and Arwin had no plans of taking it out. He wasn’t sure why the Ardent Guild would have wanted it in the first place. It was obviously a fairly powerful magical item, but it didn’t seem like it was worth the amount of hassle that they were putting into re-locating it.

Arwin left that to Rodrick for the time being. He had more than enough on his plate with working on Dwarven Smithing. If they Ardent Guild started getting closer, he trusted the ex-paladin to give them all enough warning to prepare to deal with it. There were better things to do with his time than worry until then. And, at the moment, Arwin was rather caught up with the newest project he’d been working on for the past two days.

Arwin lifted the blade of a knife he’d been working on and held it up, examining it with a critical eye. It was well formed. Light from the pulsing veins running through the smithy danced in its reflection. By all means, it was a well-made blade.

“This isn’t it,” Arwin said, letting out a sigh and tossing the piece of metal to the ground. The motion made the tendrils connected to his arms sway, but there was enough slack in them to make sure they didn’t go taut.

A small hole formed up in the cobbled floor before the knife could it hit. The metal didn’t make so much as a single clatter as it vanished into the darkness.

Red smoke twirled past Arwin as the invisible form of the Infernal Armory swept past him to stand beside the anvil.

“You are holding yourself back,” the voice said in a mixture of whisper and song. “We could make something far greater.”

“I am trying to make Lillia a gift. I am not making her a Cursed item. Not until I’ve figured out every bit of how they work on myself,” Arwin said with a firm shake of his head. “And my understanding of Dwarven Smithing is still preliminary. I’ve made it this far by stumbling blindly through the dark, but I can’t just skip all the practice I need to actually master the craft.”

He half expected the Armory to argue with him, but the red smoke just fluctuated as if in a shrug. It flowed past him to curl past his hand and alight on the wall to his side. “Very well. Practice, then. I hunger.”

“Lillia brought a bunch of food for you to eat already,” Arwin said with a sigh. “How much do you need? I’ve barely even done anything that special.”

“You have used my strength. Unlike you, it does not return naturally to me. I have limited reserves. Reserves that only replenish at your behest. If you would permit me to consume the other half of—”   

“No,” Arwin snapped. “That is Lillia’s. If you need more food, then I’ll get you more food. How much energy do you have left? Can we get another few items made?”

A ripple blew through the center of the red smoke. The cloud curled apart as if split down the center, then re-connected itself as the sound of an annoyed sigh brushed past Arwin’s ears.

“I have sufficient energy.”

“You just said—”

“I hunger for more than energy. I hunger to create,” the Armory said, its words growing insistent. The smoke twisted up to the celling as the veins filling the building thrummed with energy. “You gifted me life. I hunger to use it. Why do you seek to do anything but the peak of what you are capable of?”

“I’m working on that!” Arwin snapped. He nodded to the spot where the knife had fallen. “It wasn’t right. I could feel it. That just wasn’t good enough. I can do better.”

“You can do better,” the Armory agreed. “But you will not let yourself. The existence of a Cursed item concerns you. You treat Cursed Dwarven Smithing as if it is a continuation of Dwarven Smithing.”

“Is it not?”

“I do not know. I am an extension of you, not a well of knowledge. But if it were an extension, then it would have simply been called Dwarven Smithing, would it not? A unique name implies that it is unique. It should be treated as such.”

Arwin pursed his lips. He’d been working on this same knife for quite some time. Nothing he’d made felt anywhere near as what he’d done together with Wallace. He’d assumed that had just been because he’d had Mithril to work with that had helped him along… but there was a good chance the Armory actually had a point. He’d been getting faster at making things with the techniques he’d learned from Wallace, but he hadn’t noticed any significant improvement in quality.

I’m not making as much progress as I want to… perhaps I’m really just beating my head against the wall trying to do something that I’m not specialized into. I’ve got the Titles to resist cursed items.

“Huh,” Arwin mused, turning the word over in his mouth as he thought. “That might make sense. I was pretty sure the paths would be really heavily related and progressing one would help the other… but that’s looking like it might not be the case. Then the reason I’m not getting any significant advancements or rewards from the Mesh might be because I’m not pursuing the path I chose.”

The smoke twisted past Arwin and bobbed. “Perhaps. I do not know. Even if you make a cursed item, we do not have to use it. It can be destroyed.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But most things can be destroyed. Myself included, though I would not make the process simple. I doubt you will mistakenly invent something so powerful that it transcends even me. You do not have such a talent.”

Arwin chuckled. The Infernal Armory definitely had at least a bit of an ego. There was more than a little annoyance in its words, but their conversation rung true in Arwin’s head. He wasn’t sure if jumping right into making Cursed Items was the right choice, but he wasn’t getting enough advancement as things were right now.

It was time to change things up.

“Right,” Arwin said, rubbing his hands together and letting out a short breath as adrenaline started to build in his stomach. “Let’s see what we can do about making a Cursed item.”