Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 254-255 (Patreon)

Lava — stolen from Wallace’s Forge, of course — squelched in Arwin’s mouth as he chewed. He rested against his anvil as he worked to prepare the molten stone to work with. Magical energy prickled at the inside of his mouth. If he pretended hard enough, it almost felt like spices. If he’d never tasted any of Lillia’s cooking and had such high standards to compare against, he might have been able to believe it.

“You have been chewing for too long,” the red mist said, irritation tinging its voice as it flitted around Arwin, steps flickering in and out of sight as the invisible being moved. “It does not take you that long.”

Arwin reached into his mouth and pulled the ball of worked lava out before sending a cross glare at the smoke. “Who said you get to decide how long I take? I’m the smith here.”

“I am impatient.”

“Then you will learn to be patient,” Arwin said curtly. He popped the lava back into his mouth and went back to chewing. Every movement layered more of his magical energy into the rock, infusing it with his intent.

The Armory wasn’t entirely wrong. He’d taken longer than he normally did. Arwin’s connection with the lava had already been firmly established — but he wasn’t satisfied yet. The longer he worked the stone, the more of his intent entered it. That wasn’t to say he could keep at it forever. While there didn’t seem to be a perfectly clean exact limit, there were definitely drastically diminishing returns. The past few minutes of work were likely overkill. They’d only gotten him the equivalent of a one or two percent boost in his synchronization with the lava.

But that tiny amount wasn’t something he was willing to give up. Not when he was about to start working with cursed materials. He finally pulled the lava out of his mouth with a [Soul Flame] encased hand a few minutes later, adding it to the rest of the lava he’d prepared and rolling it all together into an orb. Waves of heat rolled off it and prickled against his face and sweat beaded against his back before soaking into his shirt.

The entire building had heated to the point where even he was starting to get a little uncomfortable. Molten energy pulsed within the lines running throughout the ground and walls. He could feel the Infernal Armory’s impatience with him. Arwin ignored it. This was not something he would let himself rush through and make a stupid mistake in the process. He would be taking every precaution he could until he knew the extent of what kind of items he’d be consistently creating.

It hadn’t taken Arwin long to determine what kind of material he wanted to try to work with for his next Cursed item. He didn’t have a teacher that could give him suggestions as to what materials would lend themselves the best toward being Cursed, but his latest Title had given him a strong hint.

[Harbinger of the Forsaken] –You reached out to the deepest reaches of your soul and welcomed the shadow that lurked within into the light. That might not have been a good idea. You can now sense and forge the emotion contained within materials — whether you want to or not. In addition, Cursed items you craft are shrouded from all but the strongest of gazes.

 “Emotion, huh?” Arwin asked, examining the black metal. “Show me what I’ve got to work with.”

A section of stone before him slid open and a small pillar rose up from beneath the ground. Upon it rested a large chunk of warped black metal that had once been part of a set of armor. Its edge was coated with dry green crystal and splatters of blood marred its surface.

Two more pillars followed afterward, and Arwin did a double take as they appeared. The first bore a single scale — one that had not belonged to a Wyrmling, but a Wyrm. It glistened in the glowing orange light spilling from between Arwin’s hands. And, on the third pillar, was a warped sword. Its blade was blackened from fire and its hilt heavily dented. The weapon was completely worthless in a fight now, but Arwin recognized it instantly. His stomach knotted.

Zeke’s sword.

“How did you get that?” Arwin demanded, his gaze snapping to the figure in the mist. It stepped to the side and flitted across the room in a stream of crimson as if unwilling to remain in his line of sight for more than a few seconds.

“Items of power are drawn to one another,” the Armory replied. Red smoke slipped between a crack in a floor and the cloud vanished, only to reform behind Arwin. A refreshing breeze rolled across his skin. “It wishes to be used.”

“Items of power?” Arwin asked, reaching for the sword before stopping himself and pulling his hand back. His brow knit. “What do you mean? This was a good sword, but it was no artifact.”

“Power is vested in more ways than one. Great emotion can lend itself to great strength when in the hands of someone with sufficient skill to activate it.”

Arwin’s eyes lingered on the sword. Then he shook his head and pulled his eyes away from it. “Put the sword away. I’m not going to waste it on my first attempt. I’m not so sure how I feel about warping one of the last things I’ve got from Zeke either.”

“Creating a tool is never a bad thing. The purpose of an item is to be used, not to rot.”

He didn’t have a response to that. It didn’t change his gut feeling. Working with Zeke’s sword… Arwin wasn’t sure he was ready to do that yet. It was going to require more than just physical strength. Splitting his attention like that when he was trying to learn was a good way to ruin the material.

“Later,” Arwin said, his voice leaving no room for argument. He shifted the ball of magma to one hand and picked the Wyrmling scale up with the other. Then he let his head tilt to the side. “And this? An item of great power as well?”

“No. You left your bag in my domain. I took it.”

“You stole it,” Arwin said. “When did I give you permission to root through my stuff?”

“All material that belongs to you belongs to me.”

Arwin’s eyes narrowed. Then he nodded to the pillars. “Get rid of those. We’ll use this. And that’s not how this works. Next time you yoink something, ask. I’m willing to be partners. I’m willing to feed you. I’m not willing to give you free reign over everything I have. Understood?”

  An irritated hiss rolled from within the smoke. Arwin stood fast. After a moment, the Armory let out a childish huff. The smoke swirled past him to curl around the anvil and shoot into the ceiling.

“Very well,” the Armory said. “I will ask.”

“Good,” Arwin said. “Now, how are we on metal?”

“Which metal?”

He thought for a moment. If he was going to make something with the scales… given how tough they had been to break, it had to be something defensive. Arwin glanced down at his feet. He’d still yet to complete the Ivory Executioner Set. All he had left were the boots, but he hadn’t figured out what kind of enchantment he wanted on them.

A scale like this one is going to lend itself great to defense. That wouldn’t hurt to have on my sabatons, but I think I’d prefer some sort of movement related trait on them. If I’m going to go for defense, then there’s only one option.  

A shield.

“Get me the rest of the Maristeel,” Arwin said, coming to a decision with a curt nod. He set the scale on top of the anvil and rolled the ball of magma between his hands. “Some Brightsteel as well.”

The pillars sank into the ground seamlessly before being replaced by another one. Piled upon it were several large sheets of Brightsteel and Maristeel. Arwin looked from it to the ball of magma in his hand, then reached out to grab the first piece of metal, sliding it into the lava. He had a lot of work ahead of him.

***

Hours slipped by. Arwin purified and prepared every single piece of metal, breaking pieces of the sheets off and feeding them into the orb of molten rock one by one. By the time he finally finished, he had a large stack of blue and silver ingots resting on the anvil beside his dragon scale.

Arwin dropped the magma and the floor opened up to swallow it. That particular feature of the Infernal Armory got more and more useful with every passing day. It was like having a magical trashcan that followed him around.

Something tells me the Armory wouldn’t take too kindly to that.

His gaze flicked over to the red mist. It swirled at the back of the room, quivering in anticipation. There was definitely something a little disconcerting about the smithy being excited about this. He wasn’t quite sure if the building was malicious but given that the magical object powering it was a massive zombie heart, it certainly wasn’t going to be feeding any orphans.

Arwin blew out a breath and studied the materials he’d readied one more time. He was pretty sure he had everything he was going to need. He gestured to the mist. “Come on, then. Let’s do this.”

“You’re going to make a Cursed item? Properly?” the airy voice grew even more animated and the mist danced through the air to gather by his side. “What kind?”

“Why do you sound so surprised about it? I’m making a shield,” Arwin grumbled. He rolled his neck and extended a hand. Verdant Inferno snapped into being in his palm. The weapon sent a contented purr rolling through his mind. It was just as eager to make this as the smithy was.

I think I’m getting ganged up on. This is unfair. Where’s Lillia when I need her?

“And of the traits?” the Armory asked. “What will we imbue? The bloodthirsty will to carve through our enemies? The all-consuming hunger that drives us?”

“It’s a shield,” Arwin replied. “What do you think, smart guy?”

The voice hesitated for a second as the mist shifted back, taken by surprise. “You are sarcastic.”

“I’m allowed to be snippy,” Arwin growled. He extended his hands. Black tendrils shot form the wall and streaked through the air, slamming into his back and shoulders. Arwin drew in a sharp breath as energy thrummed and started to flow between him and the smithy, connecting them.

Arwin lifted the scale before him with his free hand and extended his senses toward it. Faint whispers tickled the back of his ears. The desires that had been trapped within the material slowly grew louder as he beckoned them forth.

They grew louder and the world dimmer. Darkness encroached over Arwin’s vision as it focused in on the scale until nothing else remained. There was desire, but that wasn’t all. A dark, ruddy crimson smoke poured out from the scale and pooled at his feet. It bore a thick, sticky-sweet energy that clung to his skin like hot sugar.

Emotion that did not belong to him burned in his mind. The final thoughts of the Wyrm before its scale had been stolen drove into his mind like a spike. Anger. Humiliation. Hunger. Annoyance. A flicker of fear. But there was more. Amidst it were emotions that most certainly didn’t belong to the Wyrm. Victory. Survival. Not just his, but the emotions of others in the Menagerie, resided within the scale.

So this is what I’ve got to conquer, eh? Come on, then.

The emotions rose like the tide and swallowed Arwin along with the mist. He dropped to the ground and sat just moments before a familiar darkness washed over the world. Then the smithy vanished, and a vision rose up to swallow him whole. He met it with a determined smile on his lips.

Chapter 254

The roaring rustle of a forest clearing greeted Arwin as his eyes opened. Towering trees rose all around him, their shadows dancing to the tune of the wind. Blood-red sunlight cast the world around him in crimson hues and the smell of viscera and carrion hung in the air.

It was a familiar stench. One that Arwin had been subject to many times before, and one that he’d hoped to never smell again. The rancid mark of war. The mark of a corpse-splattered battlefield.

But there were no bodies. There was no blood, and there were no dead men. There was only the forest and the clearing around him. A vision — but he’d never gotten one before he’d made an item. Something was off. Arwin’s hands tightened and he instinctively called for Verdant Inferno.

The hammer didn’t respond. His palms found nothing but his fingers. There was no sign of his armor or equipment either. Arwin stood alone, clad in only plain clothes. He turned in a circle and scanned his surroundings. There was nothing. The back of his neck prickled.

Something was different. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just the sickly colors of the light. This was different from previous visions he’d had. Arwin glanced over his shoulder. He backed up until he was pressed against a tree, peeled his ears in search of a presence that his eyes had failed to see.

Before, his visions had immediately tested his strength. They’d fought to break him. To find a way to force him to give in with relentless, mindless power. It had been a straight forward challenge of will. But now, the forest simply waited.

“What are you hiding from?” Arwin asked, his voice carving through the rustling wind like an executioner’s blade.

The wind ground to a halt. The sounds of the forest vanished in a split instant. It was so quiet that Arwin could hear the beat of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. His fists tightened at his sides. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, preparing to burst into motion the moment —

A tree shattered. Fragments of wood spun through the air and a heavy step slammed into the dirt behind him. Arwin flung himself into a dive. He hit the ground in a roll and shot to his feet, spinning just in time to see massive claws wrap around the thick trunk. Wood crunched and splintered around them.

With a groan, the tree creaked and pitched forward. It slammed down in the center of the clearing with a resounding crash, its leaves fluttering through the air behind it like green tears. Two burning red eyes lit in the darkness of the forest behind the tree and a second, huge paw crashed down in the clearing.

Sickly green scales, chipped and marred by weeping black ooze, covered a heavily muscled arm easily twice as thick as Arwin’s body. Thick yellowed claws, scarred and rotted, extended from it and dug furrows into the dirt floor of the forest.    

A second paw slammed down beside the first. Arwin took a step back as a draconic head snaked into the clearing. The blood drained from his face. It was a monster that he recognized well. One that he really should have been expecting to find — but not like this.

It was Wyrm.

Or, at least, it had been.

The monster’s eyes were bloodied and blackened. Trails of dried blood dripped down the sides of its face, which were cracked and ripped to shreds. Portions of bleached bone shone through still-weeping wounds covering the Wyrm’s body. The monster’s cracked lips parted and a tongue flicked out to taste the air, rotted and missing large chunks of flesh.

A lot had changed since the last time Arwin had seen the Wyrm. He was nowhere near as weak as he had been the last time they’d fought — but he didn’t have any of his equipment. And without his equipment, Arwin was missing easily half of his strength if not more.

“This hardly seems fair, does it?” Arwin asked, taking another step back. He shifted from foot to foot and his eyes darted around the clearing in search of anything he could use to turn the fight to his advantage.

The Wyrm hissed. It advanced into the clearing with slow, shuddering steps. The monsters tail flicked, shattering the base of a tree and sending its top pitching to land with a loud crash that shook the ground beneath Arwin’s feet.

It couldn’t speak, but that was as clear of a statement as any set of words ever could have been. The Wyrm wanted a rematch.

Arwin lifted a foot to take another step back.

Then his eyes narrowed. His foot lowered back to the ground where it had been. He locked eyes with the Wyrm as it approached with slow, measured steps, not moving again until the two stood face-to-face in the center of the clearing. His lips pulled back to bare his teeth.

A vision was a battle of wills. It always had been, and it always would be.

“Come on,” Arwin growled. “You want to fight? Then we’ll fight. I’ll be damned if I’m scared of a goddamn scale. Show me what you’ve—”

The Wyrm’s tail whipped forward and slammed into the side of Arwin’s chest. It stole the rest of his sentence and lifted him off the ground. He hurtled through the air and slammed back-first into a tree with enough force to shatter it.

The breath exploded from his chest in a strangled grunt. He dropped to the ground and the tree creaked, pitching forward. Arwin dove to the side. It crashed down where he’d been standing and the ground bucked once more.

As Arwin drew in a breath, a spike of pain drove into his chest. A rib was broken. Maybe two. His teeth gritted. The Wyrm let out a hissing laugh and stepped forward. Black liquid dripped from its ravaged body and sizzled as it hit the dirt.

“You’re going to need a whole lot more than that to break me.” Arwin spat blood onto the ground and rolled his shoulders, pushing the pain into the back of his mind. His body hadn’t truly been broken. It was just pain in his mind — and if it was imagined, then it would not stop him.

The Wyrm’s tail whipped for his head like a striking snake. Arwin ducked out of the way. Wind rushed over his hair. He charged before the Wyrm had even finished its attack, closed the distance between them with three powerful steps. Arwin reared back and let out a roar as he swung his fist with all the strength he could muster and unleashed a punch into the monster’s side.

Scale cracked beneath his knuckles. It carved into his knuckles. A vibration traveled down his arm, followed by pain. He’d done damage, but it was like punching a wall. Arwin staggered back, a mixture of his and the Wyrm’s blood dripping from his fist.

I need my equipment. I can’t fight like —

A claw swept through the air. Arwin was forced to fling himself to safety once more. [Scourge] was beyond his reach. None of his abilities worked. His titles were blocked. It was nothing but him versus the Wyrm, and he was at every single disadvantage.

 The claw crashed into the ground right behind him. Arwin rose, but the Wyrm didn’t let him recover. It lurched forward and its jaws yawned open. For a brief instant, they locked eyes. Then its mouth snapped shut around him.

There was no time to dodge. Arwin thrust his hands out with a roar. Fangs drove into his palms. His blood sizzled as it contacted the Wyrm’s saliva. Tremors shook his arms as he fought desperately to keep the monster’s jaws from closing on his body. His teeth clenched so tightly that he could taste blood in his mouth and the back of his throat.

I need my equipment. I can’t win the fight like this — but I’ll be damned if I give up.

Arwin reared back and drove his foot into the Wyrm’s tongue. The monster let out a surprised hiss. The pressure on him relented for an instant. He flung himself back, ripping his arms free of the teeth impaling them. The Wyrm’s mouth slammed closed on nothing but air.

Blood splattered across the ground and he landed on his back with a pained grunt. He rolled to the side. One of the monster’s huge paws slammed into the ground where he’d been. The other crashed down before he could move, driving him into the dirt and knocking free what little breath remained in his lungs.

Its claws closed around him like a cage. Arwin grabbed at them, his blood smearing across their surface and making his grip slick. He strained, letting out a roar of defiance, but the Wyrm didn’t budge. It was too heavy — too strong.

The Wyrm’s head lowered. Its lips pulled back in a sneer. Arwin could still see red on the monster’s teeth from where it had bit him just moments before. That wasn’t going to work a second time. His muscles just didn’t have the strength.

He couldn’t win like this. There had to be more. Arwin wasn’t a warrior anymore. He was a smith. His power was his equipment and his allies, but here, he had neither. Verdant Blaze wouldn’t answer to his call. His armor was silent, and nobody could enter the vision to save him.

A final, hissing laugh slipped from the Wyrm’s scarred throat. It lifted its claw. Its head shot down. He lifted his arms before him, left with no option but to attempt to block once more as he desperately called out to his equipment.

And, in the instant that the Wyrm’s jaws started to shut, a faint response tickled the back of Arwin’s mind. It was distant. Foreign. But it was something, and he drew on it with the strength of a drowning man clutching onto a thrown rope.

Something blurred before him. A weight affixed itself to his left arm. The monster’s hot, rancid breath washed over him and its mouth snapped shut.

Its teeth never found their mark.

A loud clang echoed through the clearing. The Wyrm screamed in pain, one of its fangs cracked straight down the middle. Blood poured from its lips like saliva. It staggered back, whipping its head in pain and fury, sending blood splattering in every direction.

Arwin stared down in surprise. Attached to his arm was a deep blue tower shield easily as tall as he was. It was rectangular, with two extended flaps on its sides that stretched past his sides when he positioned it directly before himself.

The shield’s surface was completely plain and without design. But, affixed directly in its center was a single, brilliant green Wyrm scale. A dim link to the shield hummed in the back of Arwin’s mind. It felt like an extension of his body, but there was more.

Curiosity flowed down their connection. Not from him, but from the shield. A slow smile crossed over Arwin’s features. A test. The shield — or perhaps the scale itself — wanted to see what he was capable of. What he could do without it, and what he could do with it.

“So that’s how it is?” Arwin asked, driving the shield down into the ground and pulling himself to his feet.

The Wyrm hissed at him, uncertainty and anger playing through its dead eyes. It recognized the scale — knew where it had come from. Despite the monster’s anger, it made no move forward. It was scared.

Arwin shifted from foot to foot as he adjusted to the weight of the shield. He’d never used anything quite this large, but it had quite a satisfying heft to it. It felt right, which was quite odd. The item didn’t even exist. He hadn’t made it yet.

But, as Arwin stood across from the Wyrm, understanding slowly settled in. This was a vision. All that mattered here was will.

His will. The Wyrm’s will — and the will of the Cursed item that he was forging. They were all testing each other. What existed in the real world didn’t matter. Here, all that mattered was what had been and what could be.

“You want to see what I can do with you, do you?” Arwin asked the shield.

A faint tremor of affirmation ran down their connection.

The Wyrm snarled. It took a step forward, but Arwin didn’t so much as budge. His lips pulled back in a smile and he cracked his neck. The pain tearing into his body and the blood dripping from his hands was nothing but an irritating buzz at the back of his mind.  

“That’s just fine with me,” Arwin said. He lowered his stance, baring his teeth to mirror the Wyrm’s expression. “Let’s try this again.”

The Wyrm roared in challenge, and Arwin matched it.

Then, monster and man charged as one.