Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 149-150 (Patreon)

AN: Sorry for the delay! Travel trolled me pretty hard, I was up for like 30 hours straight ahahaha. Enjoy the chaps!

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“I have a confession,” Lillia whispered around an hour later. At least, Arwin suspected it was an hour. He’d been a little distracted with other matters.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now. I’ve never thought about anything like this before. Are we married?”

Arwin nearly choked on a mixture of surprise and laughter. “I — no. I believe we would be dating. Is that not how it works for demons?”

“No clue. I never had a chance to talk to anyone about anything like this,” Lillia said, speaking into Arwin’s shoulder. Even though he couldn’t see her face, her embarrassment was clear as day. “When did you get a chance? Have you… dated before? And what’s the difference?”

“Dating is mostly getting to know the other person, I think. And as for how I knew…” Arwin’s expression flickered and a small smile pulled across his lips. “Blake had a girlfriend. He told me all about her and what they’d do in their free time. More than I wanted to know, if I’m being honest.”

“Oh. I guess you’ve got the advantage over me, then.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Arwin said with a muffled laugh. “It sounds as if I’ve got experience. I’ve just heard a few things. I don’t reckon that I’m much better off than you are beyond knowing the definition of the word.”

“Then we’ll just have to learn together.”

Lillia pushed herself upright, untangling her tail from Arwin’s side. He pushed away his disappointment and did the same. It had been some time since they’d gone to bed.

Time didn’t stop running for them, no matter how badly he wanted it to. The others would probably already either be awake or close to it. There was too much to do to let the day waste away. Getting up was probably the right decision.

There was just one problem. Lillia hadn’t uncrossed her legs from his, and he couldn’t rise until she did. Despite his internal resolution of mere instants before, it was an issue that he had no desire to revolve.

Lillia leaned forward and pressed her chest against his. Her forehead touched Arwin’s and her hair fell around her head, bushing across his shoulders.

“If we’re dating, does that mean I can kiss you?” She whispered.

Arwin, with all the extra experience that had been bequeathed upon him by Blake and his stories, could muster nothing but give a rather overeager nod. It was possibly one of the easiest questions he’d gotten in his entire life.

Lillia pressed her lips to his cheek, just beside the corner of his mouth. She kept them there for half a second before pulling back and finally untangling her legs from Arwin’s. Lillia rose to her feet and found his hand, pulling him up to stand beside her. Her arms snaked around his sides and she pulled him into a tight hug.

“I look forward to learning about dating with you,” Lillia whispered into his chest. She let an arm slip down and found his hand. She gave it a small squeeze. “We should probably head out before the others really start to wonder.”

It took a supreme force of will for Arwin to gather himself to respond in a normal tone. Lillia brought up a rather important point. “What should we do about the others? Do we tell them?”

“I don’t think it should cause any issues,” Lillia replied after a second of thought. “I only didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to foul the air between us before something important.”

Arwin’s cheeks reddened again. “That was my reason as well. I think you’re right though. None of them should have a problem with it. I don’t see a reason to keep it secret. It’s just… surprisingly embarrassing to think about sharing.”

“Just one thing,” Lillia said. “We can’t let Reya know about how this happened.”

A shudder ran down Arwin’s spine and he nodded. “She’d never let us live it down. Agreed. That dies with us.”

With that, Lillia guided Arwin out of the room. She didn’t release his hand until they were well into the kitchen and close enough to a light source that he could already see the outline of her back in the shadows.

They both stepped out into the common room. Arwin was entirely unsurprised to find that they were the last ones to arrive. Rodrick and Anna had bundled themselves together with their bedding and sat on one of the chairs as they had the day before.

They’d been joined by Reya and Olive, both of whom had wrapped themselves in an individual bundle to ward off the cold. Arwin was struck with the realization that it was just as cold today as it had been the day before. He’d just been so caught up with Lillia that he hadn’t even noticed.

“Morning,” Rodrick said. “I’d wave, but that would involve removing my hand from my blankets, so just pretend.”

“Can we have breakfast soon?” Reya asked. “I’m starving. And good morning.”

“You’re supposed to start with the good morning,” Anna admonished. “But breakfast would be lovely whenever you’re ready to make it, Lillia.”

“Before that, there’s something important we need to tell you.” Arwin steeled his nerves. Everyone looked over to him, worry passing over their features at his serious tone.

“What is it?” Olive asked.

Adrenaline ran through Arwin’s veins and he nearly let out a nervous laugh. He was somehow just as stressed about this as he had been for some fights against literal monsters trying to rip his throat out.

Maybe more stressed. I don’t care what the monsters think of me.

“Lillia and I are dating,” Arwin declared. He forced the words out through his lips as quickly as he could before he could get too caught up in his thoughts.

Four gazes bored into him. Reya’s brow furrowed.

“And?” she prompted.

“And what?” Arwin asked with a blink. “That’s it.”

“Oh. Why are you saying it like that?”

“I… okay, I’m lost,” Arwin admitted. “What do you mean why? It was a revelation.”

“Arwin, we all knew,” Rodrick said with a snicker. “You were both coming out of the same room nearly every single morning. Why is this being framed as new knowledge?”

That certainly wasn’t the reaction that Arwin had been expecting. He glanced to Lillia for help, but she looked just as surprised as he felt.

“Ah… we only just started dating this morning,” Arwin said.

“What were you doing before, then?” Reya asked. “Actually, on second thought, don’t tell—”

“We were just sleeping together,” Lillia said.

Reya’s cheeks went bright red. “I really didn’t need to know that.”

“Reya, she meant in the literal form,” Olive said. “But I thought you two were already a couple as well.”

You’ve known us for a few days. How did literally everyone know about us before we did? Were things really that obvious? We’re lucky that they just seem to think we never made things official.

“Ah,” Arwin said. He cleared his throat, then scratched the back of his neck. “Well, that’s that. Now you know.”

“We knew,” Rodrick said.

“Yes, thank you. On to other things,” Arwin said, desperate for a shift of topic. “Olive, you proved invaluable yesterday. Do you have any interest in properly joining our guild? Long term, not just until you pay off your sword.”

Olive blinked, a flicker of surprise passing over her expression before she could get it under control. “Seriously?”

“Yes. It might not be official yet, but you’ve proven yourself an apt swordswoman and more than reliable. We could use someone like you.”

The others all nodded. A small smile pulled at the corners of Olive’s mouth. “Well, if you put things like that, I don’t think I can refuse. It’s hard enough to find a group of adventurers that I can tolerate enough to do a single dungeon dive with, much less anything more. If you want me, then I’ll be glad to join.”

Arwin smiled. Olive had more than proven herself in last night’s fight, not to mention how she hadn’t shown even the slightest amount of greed toward Wyrmhunger. She would be a fantastic addition to the guild.

“Welcome aboard. Then, in that case, I think we should properly come clean. No point keeping all our secrets any longer.”

“Clean?” Olive asked. “About what?”

Arwin summoned Verdant Blaze to his hands. The rest of his armor followed after it and took form on his body. He wasn’t sure what the best way to go about this was, but Olive had always said she preferred things straight on.

Then he revealed everything’s information. Olive locked in place, her mouth parting in disbelief as her eyes flicked back and forth in the air, reading the information that the Mesh was bringing up before her.

“How?” Olive whispered.

“I can make magical items,” Arwin replied.

Olive swallowed heavily. Her eyes moved to Rodrick, then to Lillia. “You mean everything you’ve all been wearing is…”

“All of my armor,” Lillia confirmed with a nod. “Rodrick’s as well.”

“Why are you living in a rundown place like this if you can do that?” Olive asked in disbelief. “You could be the richest person in Milten — no, scratch that. The richest person on the outskirts of the Kingdom.”

“Because I’m picky about who I make magical items for,” Arwin replied. “I won’t make them for just anyone. And what’s the benefit of being rich? When I need money, I’ll get it. I don’t need people beating down my door before I’m ready to deal with them.”

“I — yeah, I suppose that makes sense.” Olive swallowed again. Then her eyes narrowed slightly as a thought struck her. “Wait. No wonder you let me have that sword. You could make better.”

Arwin shrugged. “It’s still a magical weapon and you really seemed to want it. We didn’t know each other well enough for me to go revealing my abilities yet. I didn’t want you joining up because you wanted access to free magic shit.”

Olive blew out a breath and shook her head. “That’s a fair response. I don’t blame you for that.”

It looked like she wanted to say more, but she restrained herself.

While we’re on the topic of revelations… should Lillia and I tell her about our past? I don’t think Olive would betray us to the Adventurer’ s Guild. Then again, I don’t know if there’s anything to be gained from sharing that.

I think it might be best to wait a bit longer. I trust Olive, but there’s no reason to take risks excessively. We can see how she handles one big secret and then deal with things as they come after that. If she’s still trustworthy in a few weeks, we’ll tell her.

Either that, or she’ll start to wonder why Lillia literally never takes off her supposed makeup.

“I’m going to go get breakfast started, then,” Lillia said, breaking the silence an instant before it could grow awkward. “Welcome to the team, Olive.”

Everyone else mirrored her words, causing a faint blush to color Olive’s cheeks.

“By the way, we’re going to head out and collect everything we can from the fight yesterday after we get breakfast,” Rodrick said.

“I can help,” Arwin said reluctantly, but Rodrick was shaking his head before he finished the sentence.

“Why waste your time? It’ll just be collecting the scrap,” Rodrick said. “Just do your work and we’ll do ours. I was just letting you know where we’ll be.”

Arwin smiled and nodded in appreciation. Lillia slipped into the kitchen and got to work. It would probably be a little while before she had anything ready to eat, and that meant Arwin had time to check in on how Ridley was doing with his smithy.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Arwin said as he headed for the tavern door.

It wouldn’t be long before it was done if it wasn’t already. He could barely wait. Once the smithy was repaired, he’d be able to set up a proper shop.

I’m not letting the situation with the Iron Hounds happen again. We aren’t going to get caught so badly off guard. If we’re going to make our guild official and be ready to face anyone new that tries us, we’re going to need a whole lot of money.

I think it’s just about time for Ifrit to make his return. I’m going to need make a whole lot of armor.

Chapter 150

Ridley was standing outside the smithy when Arwin stepped out onto the street. His arms were crossed and he was tapping a finger against the corner of his lips in thought, but Arwin was far more concerned with the building before him.

The smithy was beautiful. Stone walls, plain but well built, rose in stark contrast to the old, wrecked buildings surrounding them. Ridley had installed several glass windows at the front to give passersby a way to see inside.

He’d even put in a wide wooden door with a shiny brass handle.

Okay, I think most buildings have doors. It’s a nice door, though.

“Ah. Arwin. You have good timing,” Ridley said as he approached, glancing over at him before returning his gaze to the building. “What do you think?”

“Is it done?”

“For the time being, yes. I structured it so it could grow,” Ridley said, gesturing vaguely toward the building. “In either direction, mind you. Going down is just as viable as up. I finished last night, but I wanted to see how everything looked in the morning before I declared it complete.”

Ridley pulled the door open and gestured for Arwin to look inside. He didn’t have to ask twice. Arwin stepped into a quaint waiting room. A stone counter ran along the back, in front of another door that presumably led into the workspace.

Ridley had installed metal hooks along the wall and several stone shelves to display armor with, and there was a small swinging door at the edge of the counter. Arwin mutely walked over to it and stepped behind the counter.

He pushed the door open and peered into the workspace. It was spacious, nearly as large as the front room. A large hearth had been built into the center of the back wall, a chimney running up to the ceiling above.

There was a spot for his anvil beside it, and several racks for tools along the walls. Ridley had even gotten his hands on a bellows and set it up beside the hearth. Aside from the missing tools and anvil, the only thing the forge was missing was fire.

It was plain, but it was beautiful.

Arwin swallowed. “I love it.”

Ridley beamed at him. “Damn right you do. Any requests you’ve got for changes? I took a few liberties with the designs since you didn’t get into specifics. I can’t modify the structure, but—”

“No, no. This is perfect,” Arwin said with a firm shake of his head. He reached into the bag at his side and pulled out the final 100 gold he owed Ridley, holding it out to the mason. As he sifted through his belongings, his fingers brushed against the bulging leather pouch that he’d taken from Jessen.

I’ll have to take a look at that once I’m finished here.

“You’ve done brilliantly. I like the door selection,” Arwin said as Ridley took the money.

“Nice and sturdy, just like the building.” Ridley chuckled and slipped the coins into a pouch at his own side. “I’m pleased you like it. You make sure you come back to me when it’s time for any improvements, you hear? I’m going to be pissed if you hire a different mason.”

“I think I can do that,” Arwin said with a grin. He held his hand out and Ridley gave it a firm shake. The mason pulled a brass key out of his pocket and handed it over to him.

“Here. You’ll need this, I reckon. It goes to both the front door and the workshop.”

“Thank you,” Arwin said. “You did great work. I look forward to hiring you again in the future, once I’ve gotten this place big enough to justify it.”

“I’ll be waiting. Not like there’s much in the way of work at the moment, so I’ll be rooting for you as well,” Ridley grumbled. He raised a hand in farewell, then headed out through the front door and shut it silently behind him.

Arwin turned in a slow circle, basking in the glory of the smithy. His smithy. There were no cracks in the walls or errant breezes passing through. And yet, even though it couldn’t have been more different from the run-down building Reya had brought him to, there was a familiar feel about it.

It was temping to head out and immediately start setting everything up. He could drag the anvil back with [Scourge] and then jump right into a little bit of work until Lillia had breakfast finished, but there was something else that had to be done first.

Arwin took Jessen’s bag out. He’d been so tired when he’d taken it from the man’s body that he hadn’t had a chance to open it yet. Looping a finger through the knot, Arwin pulled it apart and peered inside.

It was a coin purse with just over 200 gold. That was something of a disappointment. He hadn’t known exactly what he’d wanted, but Jessen hadn’t felt like the type to carry nothing valuable but gold.

Then again, in some way, it almost felt poetic. 200 gold had been what it cost to rebuild his smithy. Jessen had paid for everything he’d permitted and guided his guild to do.

But, as Arwin sifted through the coins, a spot of black caught his eye. It was hidden in a pocket sewn into the side of the pouch. He pulled at the pouch, working it open just enough to slide a small badge free of it.

The badge was made of black metal and just a bit smaller than his palm. It was largely plain aside from a tarnished silver line running through it like a tear through the center of a piece of paper.

Arwin ran his hand along the badge, turning it over. There didn’t seem to be any magic within it. As far as he could tell, it served no purpose at all. Not a functional one, at least. It strongly resembled a guild badge of some sort, but there was no name or other identifying features on it.

It definitely isn’t the Iron Hounds’ guild badge either. Did Jessen take this from someone he killed? That feels unlikely. Given that it was even slightly hidden, it seems like it belonged to him.

Arwin studied the badge for a few more minutes, then slipped it back into the pocket and returned Jessen’s entire bag into his own. He headed out to his temporary smithy and grabbed the anvil with the aid of [Scourge], heaving up with a grunt and bringing it over to his actual smithy. He set the large hunk of metal down, then brushed his hands off and glanced around one more time. He’d been out for a bit and breakfast would probably be ready pretty soon.

It wasn’t like he actually needed to eat normal food — but that wasn’t going to stop him. Lillia was the one cooking after all. He took one last look around the newly completed smithy and pictured how it would look when all his materials were in it. When it was full of armor and weapons that he’d crafted and equipment of all sorts hung from the walls.

I don’t know if I’d want quite as many people in here as Lillia wants in her tavern, though. Maybe that’s fine for the normal stuff, but I’m not changing my stance on making magical items. They’ll be for the people that I judge worthy of having them and nobody else.

That said, I should really get better at making the bloody things before I start tooting my own horn about them. With the amount of help that the Mesh has been giving me all this time, it feels odd to gatekeep anything.

Luckily, I know exactly what I need to do.

Practice. That was what it always boiled down to. But, before that could happen, he had a meal waiting for him.

***

“Well?” Rodrick asked as Arwin sat down beside the others. Lillia had already finished cooking before he’d returned and had already distributed plates of steaming vegetables and some form of poultry to all of them. “Is the new smithy finished?”

“It is,” Arwin confirmed, unable and unwilling to hide his delight. “Last night. I can really get started now. There’s so much I need to do, but moving the anvil over is probably the first thing.”

“What comes next?” Anna asked. “Opening up shop?”

“I figure I should get some gear before I do that,” Arwin said with a chuckle. “I need to make some equipment. That’ll be good practice regardless. I’m reworking how I forge just about everything. It wasn’t good enough.”

“Not good enough?” Olive’s eye twitched and she lowered her fork. “You make magical weapons.”

“Right,” Arwin agreed. “But I could make better magical weapons. You can swing your sword hard enough, can’t you? Why bother training anymore?”

“Point duly taken.” Olive popped the piece of chicken on the end of her fork into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “How do I get in line for some of that fancy magical gear?”

“I’ll probably focus on repairing everyone’s equipment first. I know my own armor took quite the beating in that fight. If you’ve got anything that needs to be fixed up, that’ll come first. After that, I’m going to make sure I’ve got enough plain gear to sell to the masses. We need more money. A lot more money — just not so badly that I’ll set aside more important tasks to go for it. I can always just make more gear on a case-by-case basis if we’re really hurting for coin.”

“And after that?” Anna asked.

“Then comes gear for all of us,” Arwin said with a laugh. “I’ve been thinking on what I can make you. Realistically, I could probably make something now… but I think it’s better to go for quality over quantity, especially when we don’t have Jessen breathing down our necks anymore.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Anna asked. “It makes me a bit uncomfortable asking you to do literally all the work.”

A small grin pulled across Arwin’s lips and he nodded. “As a matter of fact, yes. There is something you can do. The biggest change and challenge I’ve found is that I need specific materials for everything I make.”

“That doesn’t seem like much of a revelation,” Olive said with a frown. “If you want a sword, you need metal. What’s new?”

“The specific type of metal,” Arwin said. “And, beyond that, the bit that gives said metal its traits. Without getting into the gritty details, I need something that embodies the power you want your item to have. So, let’s say you want a sword with a trait that makes it very sharp — you’ll need to find a claw or something like that from something that had some overlap with that desired trait.”

“I see,” Olive said. “So you can’t just decide to put whatever enchantment you want onto the stuff you make?”

“No. I can control the general direction and I’m working on more specific traits right now, but that leads to what you can help with.”

“You want us to keep an eye out for any interesting bits and bobs from monsters,” Rodrick concluded.

“Precisely. We’ve got a good bit from the Wyrm, not to mention the bugs in the dungeon we did a bit ago, but more can’t hurt. If there’s a specific trait you want your equipment to have, finding a piece related to that trait will help a lot.”

“We can do that,” Anna said. She polished off the rest of the food on her plate before speaking again. “Speaking of which, we were thinking of heading back to the forest to retrieve anything that we still can.”

“That would be very helpful,” Arwin said. His gaze drifted to Reya. She’d been quieter than usual throughout their meal. He wasn’t sure if she’d noticed, but she was idly rolling the blood-red dagger over her knuckles like a toy. “Reya, is everything okay?”

She blinked and caught the dagger before it could fall, sliding it into the sheath at her side. “Just thinking.”

“Anything in particular?” Anna asked. “And you should really be careful about thinking with that blade out. It’s going to get eyes if you do it somewhere public.”

“I’ll make sure to leave it sheathed,” Reya promised. “And… well, I was thinking about what happened after the fight.”

“You got a Title, didn’t you?” Olive asked. “There’s no way that dagger just bonded to you for no reason.”

I’m of the same opinion. I hope it wasn’t a detrimental Title. I don’t know if the Mesh would view getting covered head-to-toe in Wyrm blood as a good thing.

“It wasn’t a Title,” Reya said with a shake of her head. “It was a Challenge.”

Huh. That makes two of us. For something that I’ve never heard of before, it’s a bit strange that —

Arwin’s thoughts trailed off as he caught the look that flicked over Olive’s features. It wasn’t the confusion that everyone else had shown when he’d first mentioned his own Challenge.

It was recognition.