by Dan Thomas
“Yep. To save on time and resources we want to incorporate the armor onto the saddle rig he already has. Looking at what metal we have, I think I can forge enough plates to cover his head, neck, and his back around the saddle, as well as the tops of his flanks.” Chopsticks grabbed the tong from the anvil and used it to pick up an ingot of iron out of the pack.
“So, I need to cut the leather into long straps, and then go and cut them to length around Abe’s chin, his neck, his chest, and around the base of his tail.” Max unrolled the thick bundle of hide, one end spilling off the bench where it was too long to fit onto the surface.
“Yep. Use this.” Chopsticks reached into his pocket and tossed something to Max.
Max caught the sheathed metal knife. “Easy peasy. You think you’ll manage smithing out those plates?”
Chopsticks nodded. “I’ve watched a couple of tutorials online. The beauty of armor for dinos the size of Abe is that while it takes a lot more resources, it’s not anywhere near as complex as smaller armor.”
“Tutorials?” Max raised an eyelid. “How long were you planning on making this dino armor?”
“Uh...” Chopsticks didn’t turn around from the forge. “I’ve had the idea for a little while, just thought this was the perfect time to give it a go.”
“Well, Ticket and Pez gave you the green light, so you must have timed it just right.” Max unsheathed the knife. The blade was sharp, but it wasn’t a weapon. This was one of the knives they commonly used for leatherwork or fine woodwork. He placed the blade on one end of the leather, planning to cut a strip of leather just under a hand’s width in size from the thick hide. Considering the weight it would be holding, Max didn’t want it to be too thin and break during the heat of the expected battle.
“They just know that I know what I’m doing,” Chopsticks said. Max could hear the roar of the fire as Chopsticks began fanning it once again, presumably after applying a pinch of flux to an ingot and placing it into the furnace.
Max chuckled as he began to cut into the hide. Despite the sharp knife, he had to put his weight into the cut to make sure that he sliced the thick leather off clean, having to use a sawing motion every so often when he failed to cut all the way through the hide.
The knife didn’t exactly glide through the material, but Max kept going until he had reached the end of the workbench. He then slid the hide sideways, so that the uncut end lay across the work surface. Max slipped the knife into the end of the incomplete cut and carried on pushing the blade through the material until he reached the end, separating the thick strip of leather from the rest of the hide.
He held up the strap, grimacing at the wavy edge that he had cut. He didn’t have the steady hands he was used to.
“It’s not so easy to do everything by eye without a better character, huh?” Chopsticks asked over his shoulder.
Max turned as Chopsticks picked the ingot out of the flames with a pair of tongs. The normally dull surface of the iron was glowing bright cherry red, with a molten, glassy coating over the surface that showed that the metal had been fluxed and was now workable.
Chopsticks grabbed the heavy hammer, spinning it in his hand so that the narrow peen end of the hammer was facing down. Laying the metal onto the anvil’s face, he raised his arm and brought the hammer down with the familiar metal tink, leaving a long dent in the surface of the metal.
Max stood and watched for a few moments as Chopsticks worked his way down the ingot, hammering in dents, before turning the hammer and using the wide face to forge the metal flat again, causing it to thin and elongate.
Max wiped the perspiration from his forehead. The small stone building always heated up quickly, and Max along with it, while Chopsticks continued to hammer and then turn to place the metal back in the forge without breaking so much as a sweat.
Max turned back to the work he had to do. Starting again at the end now on the workbench, Max began slicing off another strap of leather, intending to cut it as close to the size as the first one before he rinsed and repeated.
Max worked to the steady rhythm of Chopsticks beating metal over the background noise of the crackling fire and rushing air of the blower when Chopsticks had to heat up the fire some more. The task took him longer than he would have expected, but it was awkward having to constantly shuffle the large hide around as it didn’t all fit onto the workbench at once. Despite his growing frustration, he didn’t rush, trying to make each cut as even as possible.
“Phew, that’s one bag done,” Chopsticks said.
“And I’m done here.” Max resheathed the knife and hooked it onto his belt before grabbing the bundle of wide leather straps. He looked at the pile of iron sheets that Chopsticks had forged and dunked into the large bucket of water. They looked to be about a square foot in size and a little under half an inch in thickness.
“This armor is going to be super heavy.” Max headed for the door and the relatively cool air.
“Oh, yeah, but the parts of Abe that are covered are going to be almost impenetrable to arrows.” Chopsticks opened the next bag, the ingots inside a brassy color. “That’s why we’re going to have to harness the armor in parts, like, the head part, neck, and then body are all going to the separate so that we can actually put it on him.”
Max paused at the door, breathing in the fresh air. “You’re sure that Abe’s going to be able to carry all that around as well as fight?”
“Abe will be fine.” Chopsticks placed a copper ingot into the flames. “He will have to use more Stamina to do his thing, but as long as we’ve got a bit of time, I’ll take him out hunting a few times in armor. That should rocket his Strength and Constitution training up.”
“I’ll get the montage music ready.” Max chuckled. “It’s a shame that dinos can’t learn Traits like we can. Like, that you can’t choose them in the same way.”
“Yeah, it is.” Chopsticks moved the ingot to the anvil. “Would be cool to min-max a dino. Even though I normally hate the idea. Anyway, shoo, go figure out the straps so that we can start fixing these plates on.”
Max squinted as he stepped out of the dim building. “Oh, hello there.” He looked up at Abe’s half-closed eyes lazily looking down at him.
Chopsticks must have saddled the Abelisaur when he went inside to get the metal and brought him out with Taz. The large carnivore now stood idly in the warm sun on the grass next to the forge, which he was as tall as. Taz had wandered over to the other side of the path and was acting as a living lawnmower as he munched his way through the short, cropped weeds.
“All right, dude, I’m just going to mess around with your saddle rig for a minute. If you could just stay put, that would be great.” Max approached the dino, and climbed up the leather ladder on his leg, hoisting himself into the saddle.
Once on the dino’s back, he laid all but two of the cut straps on the saddle, and shuffled up onto Abe’s broad shoulders, mentally activating his link to the dino’s shard, and telling him to stay still. Max could only assume that the huge dino decided to obey when it didn’t move.
Max gingerly hauled himself a little farther up Abe’s neck and leaned forward. He placed the strap over the top of Abe’s wide, flat head. He could feel the dino tense slightly underneath him, unsure of what he was doing.
“It’s all right, Abe. Please just don’t shake me off right now.” Max flattened himself against Abe’s neck and then reached a hand on either side past his head.
He could just about reach around the dino’s skull, his fingertips brushing against the ends of rough leather hanging around his head. Max grunted as he stretched as far as he could, relaxing once his hands wrapped around the leather.
He ran one side through his hands, creating slack before passing it underneath Abe’s chin to his other hand, and twisting the whole thing around until both ends of the leather were in his hands over the top of Abe’s head, the slack hanging under his jaw.
“Thatta boy,” Max crooned as he gently pulled the leather t
ight. Once there was no more slack, but still enough give so as not to restrict the movement of the carnivore’s jaw, Max tucked the loose end of the leather under his arm, took out the knife from around his belt, and cut off the excess of the strap.
Using a bit of the cordage from his pack, he tied the two ends together so that they’d stay in place around the dino’s chin. It wouldn’t be the final solution, but it would hold it in place for now.
Max repeated the step another two times so that Abe ended up with a strap around the top of his neck and one closer to his ridged eyebrows. Max figured that once they were all riveted together, they’d provide enough support for what he could only assume was going to be something resembling a helmet.
Placing the excess perpendicular to the three large straps, Max cut shorter lengths from the leather that ran across the three head straps he could use to bind everything together securely later.
He then took the second length of leather he had in hand and held it against Abe’s muscular neck. It just about reached from the chin strap he had cut to the dino’s shoulders. Perfect.
Max tied the neck piece to the chin strap, before sliding back down Abe’s neck and tying the loose end to the band of leather holding the saddle tight around Abe’s chest.
With a smile, Max grabbed another strap and measured it to the other side of Abe’s neck, cut it, and tied it in place. Already he was beginning to see the project coming together.
With the earlier frustration at his ineptitude forgotten, Max repeated the process of measuring the straps around Abe’s body and cutting them to size before running a third length of hide along the top of his neck just to make sure that the armor plates would sit properly. His task was made much easier with the dino already wearing the saddle rig, and Max used most of the new leather to simply add reinforcements to the rig that would bear the weight of the armor moving around.
Max was sure that Abe had fallen asleep while he tied on the belts of leather around his chest, looping over the dino’s back before Max moved to the final additions he needed to make.
He attached one of his last strips of hide to the back of the saddle before he had to dismount to pull the loose end under Abe’s tail and toss it back up so that he could tie it all together from on top of Abe.
As Max climbed back up into the saddle, facing backward, movement caught his eye.
Looking up, he could see just above the low roof of the storehouse. On the other side, he could see a large log that had been moved out from inside. It looked as though a frame of wood had been nailed onto the bottom, and that a leather harness had been built around that.
Sam and Pez had worked fast but seemed to be taking a break, as Max could see Pez leaning against the makeshift battering ram. He must have just said something funny as Max could also see Ticket laughing.
Max couldn’t help but smile at the grin plastered across Pez’s face. He could only guess that Pez was proud of a joke he had just made that had landed well.
Shaking his head, Max turned back to the task at hand, using the last of his cordage to secure the back of what would be the armor rig in place.
“How’s it going?”
Max twisted around in the saddle to see Chopsticks looking up at him from the doorway of the forge.
“It’s done, I think! Check it out.” Max hoisted a leg over the saddle and into the leather rungs of the saddle ladder, climbing down to join Chopsticks.
Chopsticks nodded with a smile. “Perfect! I knew you hadn’t lost your touch. I’ve beaten all of the plates to size. I’ve got a little bit of flux left, so we can adjust some of the copper plates if we need to, but the iron ones will have to do as long as they’re not majorly wrong, even if they don’t fit perfectly. But considering the timescale we’re working on, I’m happy with how this is looking.”
“Good to hear. Now we’ve just got to attach all of the plates to the rig and figure out how we’re going to put it all together because I don’t think that the string I’ve used is going to hold up.”
Chopsticks rubbed his chin, an eager look in his eyes. “We’ve got a load of spare nails that Pez has luckily painstakingly removed from the wooden walls that he’s replaced, he can use those to affix the metal plates to the leather straps. And for attaching it all, I think we’ve got enough spare buckles. Remember we bought in bulk when we originally made the Abelisaur saddles? They’ll do perfectly, and it’ll be easy to take everything apart.”
“What do you want me to do now?” Max asked.
“Take off all the parts you’ve added to the rig, but remember what parts go where. We’ll start nailing on the metal plates, starting with the head and neckpieces.” Chopsticks patted Max’s shoulder. “If only we had more metal, we could turn Abe into a walking tank, but this is a start. Be right back.”
Chopsticks headed for the storehouse to grab the nails and buckles that he needed, while Max began by untying the chin strap and neck straps from the rest of the saddle rig, letting them drop to the ground.
Once Chopsticks returned with a leather bag full of nails and buckles, they both headed into the forge and began carting out the metal plates that Chopsticks had stacked around the forge. Max wasn’t sure how useful he was carrying two or three of the plates while Chopsticks carted out stacks of ten or so, as well as bringing the anvil and stand out by himself in another trip as well.
Once everything was outside, Max brought the head straps to the anvil, along with the short pieces of leather that would hold the whole thing together.
Max untied the cordage holding one of the joints together, placing the two ends of the leather on top of each other. Chopsticks then pinched one of the metal nails in his fingers, sticking the point into the leather, and tapping it down until it had pierced the two leather pieces. He flipped it over so that the point was facing up, and hammered it down flat, so that the thin end splayed into a second head on the nail, securing the leather together.
It was a difficult task, but between them, they worked out a system where Max aligned the leather and Chopsticks riveted the pieces together.
Once the part of the rig for Abe’s head was finished, Chopsticks and Max held it up between them, flailing their arms around as they tried to figure out how it would sit on Abe’s head, who watched them with a side-eye from where he was still standing calmly.
Once they were sure that they had identified which straps would go around the dino’s neck, they draped it across the anvil again, Chopsticks taking halves from three buckles and riveting them in place before attaching the other halves onto the neck-straps, as well as the adding buckles to the ends of the leather that would wrap around Abe’s head and under his chin, so that they could clasp it all together instead of having to somehow slip the whole thing over Abe’s head.
Once they had buckled and tacked all of the leather together, they spent some time tugging on all of the joints to make sure they would hold.
“Looks good so far,” Max said.
“Yeah.” Chopsticks sighed. “I’ve just realized I’ve sorta done this in the wrong order.”
“What do you mean?” Max asked warily.
“I didn’t punch holes in the plates. And seeing as we live in a world without mechanical drills, I’m going to have to heat them again to punch the holes.”
“Do we have any flux left?” They might have had time to find and gather more, but it was always a bit of a gamble as to how long that could take.
“We’ve got enough to finish this; we’re not going to be working the metal much. But that’ll be the last of it.” Chopsticks grabbed both ends of the small anvil. “I’ll start getting the forge hot again while you cart the metal back inside. Just think of it as Strength training.” Chopsticks winked.
Max groaned as he leaned down and picked up one of the iron plates.
Chopsticks quickly brought the fire back up to heat, before applying a small amount of flux to one of the plates and placing it into the flames.
Max couldn’t keep track
of where all of the holes needed to be punched in each plate, but Chopsticks’ more advanced crafting Traits allowed him to mentally mark points on the surface of the plates. Along with his Traits, Max was sure that Chopsticks had already prepared a plan for making armor for Abe, which he was probably referencing as he worked.
The metal came to heat quickly, after which Chopsticks took the red-hot metal to the anvil, placed a small, sharp metal rod onto the hot surface, and hammered down to force it through the plate, leaving a hole big enough for a nail to fit through.
Max was sweating and panting while shifting all of the plates back and forth, but the work was much easier for Chopsticks, and he quickly powered through, dotting holes in lines all the way along the plates that Max was confident would align with the leather he had cut for the rig.
Once he had moved all the plates inside, Max then brought in the head and neck portion of the armor rig that they had crafted.
Taking a break from hammering the hot metal, Chopsticks helped line up the plates to the leather, knocking the nails through the holes and into the leather before flipping everything over and hammering the nails flat as they had done before, securing the metal to the leather.
As more of the plates were affixed to the rig, Max could see it coming together.
Chopsticks had managed to smith the plates into shapes that looked as though they would roughly fit the contour of Abe’s front end, the plates overlapping slightly so that there would be a degree of movement over one another, ensuring that Abe would still be able to maneuver.
Once they had riveted the plates to the head and neck rig, they dragged the whole bundle out between them.
The rig quickly tangled up, and when they hauled it to Abe’s feet, Max worried that Chopsticks had in fact missed the mark, and they’d have to start from scratch.
However, once Chopsticks had climbed on top of Abe, and hauled the makeshift helmet up one rope they tied around their creation, Max couldn’t help but grin.
