Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 107-108 (Patreon)

Chapters 96-108 released

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The [Soul Flame] in the hearth beside Arwin danced merrily as it waited hungrily for more metal to heat. He was pretty sure that metal was just about the last material that a long bow should have been made out of.

Even if he was using Brightsteel, it was still magnitudes less flexible than wood, and he’d seriously underestimated one little problem. Arwin needed a piece of metal that actually wanted to be a bow.

Finding something that wanted to be a sword wasn’t hard. Armor, weapons, all of the normal things that metal was meant to be – that was easy. But a bow… not so much. It was like trying to find a child whose ideal future career was a pickler.

They probably existed somewhere, but chances were they’d need a little bit of motivation to get to that point. And that was exactly what Arwin did. He found the piece of Brightsteel that seemed most indifferent about its eventual form and spent about an hour going on about how fascinating bows were.

It was – quite literally – akin to talking to a brick wall. He had no clue if the metal could actually hear him. His reflection, warped in the face of the Brightsteel, spoke back to him as if mocking his words. Arwin pressed on. If something was stupid and worked, then it wasn’t stupid.

“Don’t tell the other pieces of metal,” Arwin informed his chosen piece, “but close-range fighting is actually a little boring. The real excitement is in blasting someone’s head off from a hundred meters away. Doesn’t that sound fascinating?”

The metal didn’t respond.

“Imagine how flexible you could be. Nice and bendy. That’s much better than being stuck as a stiff old sword. Who wants to be stiff? Nobody, that’s who. You could be raining thunder down on our enemies from two – no, three hundred meters away. Imagine that. What can a sword do in comparison?”

A whole lot of stuff, but that’s not the point. I am not going to start arguing with myself.

The metal rippled in the firelight. Arwin ran his hands over its smooth surface. A small smile pulled across his lips. Something had changed. The metal wasn’t as resistant as it had been before. Where there had been opposition there was simply nothing beyond a faint, dim sense of curiosity.

[Stonesinger] wouldn’t quite let Arwin speak to Brightsteel since it wasn’t a magical material. Fortunately, he was pretty sure he didn’t need it. He’d gotten his unspoken invitation. The metal was willing to play.

“Let’s see what we can do with you, shall we?” Arwin asked, bringing the Brightsteel over to the hearth and placing it within the flames. He picked up the piece of Maristeel he’d cleaned the previous day while he waited.

Its beautiful blue surface shimmered to his touch. Arwin was fairly certain it wasn’t magical. [Stonesinger] didn’t connect with it any more than it did with the Brightsteel. But, at the same time, the Maristeel was clearly more.

He’d fully expected it to be harder to convince this metal to do what he wanted than it had been to convince the Brightsteel, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. The instant Arwin’s attention brushed over it, he felt a sense of anticipation and approval coming from the metal.

It knew all the effort he’d gone through to clean and prepare it. Even though it seemed to have no desire to be a bow in particular, it hungered to be something. Arwin had taken it from scrap and returned it to glory. Now it was ready to return the favor.

I think I like this metal more than I like most people.

“Thank you. I’ll honor your gift,” Arwin promised the Maristeel. He placed it into the hearth and crossed his arms as he waited for everything to heat. His attention drifted to the Heart of the Devouring Prism while he waited.

It was dead – but there was no doubt that it was magical. Arwin had yet to try to communicate with it. He wasn’t so sure that he wanted to. The murals in the skeleton’s grave had painted a very vivid picture. It wasn’t a folly he longed to repeat.

“It’s not like I’ll be able to bring out your full potential if I don’t at least try to speak with you,” Arwin said to the crystal. “I guess that means I have no choice. I’m not settling for mediocrity. I need power. You want power. I think we can work together – but only as long as you let me lead.”

The crystal rippled in his hands. Arwin’s eyes narrowed. The ripple hadn’t come from the dancing flames. It had come from within the crystal.

Dead my ass.

“If you want to speak, then speak,” Arwin said. “Just know that I’ll toss you aside if you try to betray me or hurt my allies. I want to work with you, but I don’t need to work with you. I won’t put them at risk.”

He sat down beside the hearth and focused his senses on the crystal. His eyes drifted closed as he waited to hear its response. If it didn’t give him one, the weapon would be impossible to make. He wasn’t going to take the risk.

I’ll have to smash the crystal apart and see what I can take from it. There’s no way I’m sticking the whole thing into a weapon until I know exactly what it wants.

A tendril of energy brushed across Arwin’s mind. It deepened and pulled at his mind. The temptation to resist was strong. He forced himself to relax. The only way he’d get anywhere would be if he spoke to the crystal.

Arwin opened his mind, and a vision flooded into it.

A sea of glittering green washed out before him. It was full of a deep, all-consuming hunger. A desperate hunger, one that could never be sated by any meal. It permeated every part of the crystal and sank deep into the earth.

There was no way to stem the hunger. The more the crystal ate, the more it hungered. An endless cycle that had no end or beginning.

Pain. Hunger. Pain. Hunger. Pain. It swirled and intermixed like a viscous soup of agony. The crystal wanted more than anything to escape it, but all it could do was make it more intense. It couldn’t even remember the last time it had felt relief.

And, in the rippling green, Arwin saw himself. He saw his future, should he fail to succeed on the Challenge that the Mesh gave him. There would come a time where he couldn’t forge enough equipment to sustain himself.

If he couldn’t change his fate, he would become like the crystal, seeking out magic like a rabid dog and devouring it – just to find that the hunger had grown deeper still in the time it had taken him to swallow.

Visions of his future appeared hidden within the verdant ocean. Rabid and mindless, his teeth turned to jagged spikes and his hair overgrown. Eyes, sightless and starved, darted about like bees trapped within a cage.

The back of Arwin’s spine prickled at the intensity of the crystal’s anger. At its hunger – and at its fear. He set his jaw as the vision bore down on his mind and tried to crush his will.

“No,” Arwin said. He slammed the visions away with the force of his own will. “That’s not what’s going to happen to me. I will conquer the Challenge.”

The crystal shimmered around him. It was laughing. Arwin’s annoyance grew. [Stonesinger] let him communicate with magical materials. It hadn’t said anything about fighting back against them – but he wasn’t about to let that stop him.

He threw the vision back, but he didn’t let the crystal free. He envisioned a different future and imposed it onto the glistening stones.

A future where he stood atop a cliff, clad in glistening armor that most could only dream of seeing. The roaring might of Verdant Blaze in one hand and a massive bow in the other. The Hungering Maw coiled within him, a snake that had been tamed and laid in wait for his beck and call.

Behind him was his guild, all clad in armor that he had made. Some of them had faces – Lillia, Rodrick, Reya, Anna. The others were faceless. They were the ones he hadn’t found yet, but they would come. He would not lose himself. There was too much at stake.

Arwin slammed his reality into the crystal like a hammer blow. It was the only reality he would accept, and a magical rock wasn’t about to make him change that. The Heart of the Devouring Prism shuddered in his grip.

It tried to push back. Perhaps it did – Arwin wasn’t actually sure. This was not a contest of power but a contest of will. And, no matter how strong the crystal had once been, Arwin would not be outdone.

“Yield,” Arwin snarled. “You will do as I say. I will forge you just like I will forge my future. Your only options are to bend or to break.”

The crystal struggled against him. It pushed fear and doubt. It knew that Arwin would fail. It –

“I will not fail!” Arwin roared. “Yield!”

The crystal’s vision shattered. It crumbled around him like planes of breaking glass and swirled into a green hurricane. A sea of black stretched out around Arwin as the crystal gathered. Across from him floated the Heart of the Devouring Prism.

Color bloomed from the darkness. Silver and deep blue metal gathered into the form of a bow; the Heart of the Devouring Prism carved into the bow’s grip. The vision faded. Arwin’s eyes opened.

He still sat on the ground in his rickety temporary smithy. The crystal rested in his hands, just as it had when he’d closed his eyes – and yet, even though all appeared identical to how it had been just a short while ago, it was everything but.

The Heart of the Devouring Prism had given to his demands. It would be the heart of his bow. A smile split Arwin’s lips and he rose to his feet. The metal in his hearth was glowing a warm orange, ready to be forged.

There was nothing left in his way. Every part of his bow awaited to be forged. All that remained was to put it together.

“I won’t let you down,” Arwin promised the Heart as he took the Brightsteel from the hearth and set it onto the anvil. “Even if you never found a cure for our condition, I will. I’ll find it for both of us, and you’ll be at my side. Turn that hunger into drive. Channel it into determination to succeed. Determination to take down everything in our path. And, with your help, I will claim everything that you could not.”

Let your hunger add to mine, for no matter how much you starved, it is nothing in comparison to my desires. My own hunger eclipses any primal instinct that you could ever contain. I hunger for more than just food and power and survival.

I hunger for victory.

Chapter 108

Verdant Blaze sang. Arwin had – as usual – lost track of time entirely. All that remained was the strike of crystal on metal and the beat of his own heart. Hours had gone by. Of that much, he was certain.

The time hadn’t passed in vain. He’d formed the sleek arms of his new bow, twisting strands of Maristeel through the Brightsteel in a swirling pattern. He’d kept the ratio heavily in favor of the Brightsteel so the bow wouldn’t be so difficult to draw back that even [Scourge] would struggle.

Mixing the two steels would give it what Arwin hoped to be the best of both worlds. Flexibility from the Brightsteel and immense resilience from the Maristeel. The closer to the ends of the bow limbs the metal got, the more of it became the glistening blue metal. Its tips were pure blue, hardened from repeated forging and quenched in oil.

The grip of the bow was still unfinished. Arwin had left it wide open, leaving space for the Heart of the Devouring Prism. It was to be the last piece he added. The time for that was rapidly approaching.

Arwin checked over his work, making sure there weren’t any glaring flaws. The bow was coming together spectacularly. The Mesh seemed just as excited about making it as he was. It had guided his strikes, but he hadn’t followed it entirely.

Some of the designs at the bows ends and the spot to hold the crystal were entirely his own work. Finding a balance between relying on the Mesh’s guidance and using his own ideals was the way to make the best equipment. Everything that he’d learned over the last few weeks had gone into the weapon on the anvil before him.

One last step.

Arwin picked up the Heart of the Devouring Prism. It felt lighter than he remembered. He’d never actually managed to damage or cut up the crystals before, but he’d have to find a way to do it if he wanted to make it fit.

“You’re going to have to work with me here,” Arwin informed the Heart. “You want to join me, then help me make you into the best weapon that I can. There’s only one shot at this.”

The crystal didn’t respond. It had finished speaking. All Arwin could do now was hope that he’d gotten through to it and do his best to ensure the final weapon was the best it could possibly be.

He set the crystal into the slot he’d carved. It fit perfectly, but that was the easy part. The next one was figuring out how to carve away nearly half of it. He chewed his lower lip, then grabbed Verdant Blaze again.

I’ve never been one for subtlety. I’ll just –

A tiny click split the air. It was so faint that it was almost lost into the crackle of the [Soul Flame], but Arwin managed to just barely pick it up. His eyes focused on a tiny node at the top of the crystal. It had cracked – entirely of its own volition.

Arwin grinned.

The Heart was helping him.

He swung Verdant Blaze. It struck the crystal with a loud clang, splitting off a small portion of it. The piece shattered into dust that rained across the grip of the bow. And, in the process, a new crack formed.

Arwin struck that one too. Every blow broke away another portion of the crystal and scattered faint green dust across his anvil and the bow’s surface. Verdant Blaze rose and fell faster with every strike. Coils of [Soul Flame] rose off its head and infused into the weapon.

Excitement built in his chest as he worked. The crystal grew smaller and started to resemble the picture he’d had in his mind. Even though every strike he made only took away a tiny portion of the crystal, it was still progress.

Hours passed. The crystal smoothed and shrank further. Its dust fused with the metal around the grip, welded into place by Verdant Blaze’s [Soul Flame] until it resembled a green stary sky surrounding a moon at the bow’s center.

Tingles of the Mesh danced within the bow and prickled at his fingertips. Power built with every hammer strike. The last pieces of the puzzle slotted into place. The Mesh no longer recognized the Heart of the Devouring Prism as its own being. It was part of the bow now, for better or for worse.

Arwin lowered Verdant Blaze and brushed the weapon off. He brought it to his hearth and plunged it into the flame once more, letting it heat for just a short while before taking it over to the oil barrel and dunking its tips in.

He didn’t want to overwork or harden the center of the bow – that part needed to be flexible. The ends, on the other hand, were best off being resilient. Oil hissed and flamed as fire danced across its surface.

Arwin waited until it had died down before taking the bow out and working at removing the crud that had formed on the portions of the bow that had been quenched. He polished it off with [Scourge] empowered fingers, rubbing it smooth.

And, finally, he was done. What remained before him was a metal bow. It was devoid of a string, but the power within the weapon was evident. Glistening silver and blue intertwined, speckled with stars of green surrounding a matching grip carved from pure gemstone. The whole bow was almost as tall as he was and thicker than his arm. It was laughably large – or it would be up until he actually shot something with it. Arwin doubted anyone would be laughing then.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.

The Mesh appeared to agree. Golden letters burst forth in the air as power hummed through both him and Verdant Blaze. The hammer shuddered and a feeling of deep satisfaction invaded Arwin’s mind. It was getting more powerful with every new piece that Arwin made. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

He didn’t have time to consider it. The Mesh’s writing had completed, and his attention was fully upon it.

[Prism’s Reach: Unique Quality] has been forged. Forging a magical item has granted you energy.

Achievement: [Armed and Dangerous] has been earned.

[Armed and Dangerous] – Awarded for forging a weapon whose rarity was overwritten by its own desires.Effects: You may select an item to join this weapon’s Set, regardless of its quality. This achievement will be consumed upon selecting an item.

Arwin swallowed. He couldn’t muster thoughts, much less words. The Mesh had given him the ability to make a Set from nothing. He’d still yet to unlock any of the hidden properties from the one set he’d completed for Lillia, but he knew all too well just how powerful Set synergies could be. Being able to force two items together into a single set was an incredible boon so long as he chose the right item.

The string – or an arrow, I’d assume. It depends on if the Mesh counts the string as part of the bow or as an entirely separate item. There’s only one way to find out. I was hoping that forging the bow would give me more insight into the [Hungering Maw], but it looks like I might have to advance my Tier or finish the bow before that happens. Even still, this thing is incredible.

Barely even willing to breath, Arwin turned his gaze to his bow to see its status. It had turned out Unique, which could be either a blessing or a curse. The Mesh had said that its desires had overwritten its rarity. That was mildly concerning. The bow wasn’t fully his own to control.

Prism’s Reach: Unique Quality

[Awoken]: This item has taken on life of its own. With every death it causes, it will grow slightly more powerful. Upon reaching [Unknown] threshold, it will be able to bond with its wielder.

[Power for Power]: Prism’s Reach can only be drawn when infused with magical energy from its Wielder. A portion of the spent energy will be transferred into its shots.

[Corrupted Shot]: Arrows fired by Prism’s Reach will infest their target with crystal upon impact, consuming any uncontested magic whenever possible.

[Immense Hunger]: Prism’s Reach can absorb magical energy from its wielder in exchange for empowering its next shot. The amount of magical energy it draws will increase exponentially with the amount of time it spends drawn. Overfeeding Prism’s Reach may modify its attributes temporarily.

[Incomplete]: This item and its abilities cannot be used until it is finished with an appropriate string.

[Unique]: This item has formed a treaty with Arwin Tyrr. It has not yet acknowledged him as owner, but it will obey his commands until deciding if he is worthy of its service. Information about this item may be hidden from others.

[The Left Arm]: This is a set item of [2] pieces. When the entire set is used, a concealed property will be unlocked.

It was, without a doubt, the longest description for an item that Arwin had ever seen. He read over it several times. Most of it was good. Most, but not all. The bow was definitely powerful. It seemed he’d convinced the Heart to give him a trial period.

I’m a bit worried about what it means by temporarily modifying some attributes by overfeeding it, but that’s something for me to worry about later. I’m going to need to find a string strong enough to actually withstand the draw weight this thing is going to need. I’ll also need something to shoot from it.

Arwin hadn’t managed to reach the next tier from making the bow, but he was relieved for it. He hadn’t gotten all that many Achievements at his current one. While advancing would definitely be useful and would have given him another spot to bind to a weapon with, getting an extra Achievement or two would go a long way.

Still, he wasn’t sure he wanted to walk around with the bow just sitting loose at his side. Arwin took a moment to hide its status from any prying eyes. It was already eye-catching enough as it was. After a moment of thought, he unbound his leg armor.

The rest of his armor appeared on his body as [Arsenal]’s power vanished for the rest of the day. Arwin didn’t mind that. He didn’t have any more plans, and he wanted to bond to the bow as soon as possible.

His greaves were powerful, but they were probably his weakest item right now. They were the only pieces he had that weren’t part of or didn’t have the potential to eventually be reforged into a Set piece.

I should be able to reforge the Ivory Executioner Chestpiece so it fits the set with the helm, and I figure my greaves will probably be expected to be part of that set too. Maybe gauntlets and boots as well. Either way, the pants will be the next piece I replace for myself when the time comes.

Arwin slung the massive bow over his shoulder with a grunt. It really was heavy. The sooner he could bond to it, the better. He headed over to the door and poked his head outside. To his surprise, night had already fallen.

“Could have sworn it hadn’t been that long,” Arwin muttered to himself. The world didn’t seem to mind its offense to him. The moon rested in the sky above, uncaring. Arwin shook his head and drew the fire from his hearth before walking over to the tavern.

First things first, he needed to take a bath. A small grin pulled back across his face. After he finished cleaning up, he could show Lillia his new bow. Even if it wasn’t done yet, he couldn’t wait to see what she – and the others – would think of it.

And, after that, he greatly looked forward to completing the weapon and putting it into action.