The Reaver was the first to notice that Roark was no longer absorbed in his grimoire. She kicked the remaining pile of Thursr chunks down the stairs and clapped her hands together as if dusting them off.
“Done with your rage reading, then?” she asked.
“I am,” Roark said, unable to suppress a cockeyed smile. “Would the two of you like to see what it accomplished?”
“Kaz is almost finished.” The Thursr attacked the G in PwnrBwner_OG furiously. “Just a few more letters to go.”
Roark eyed the still mostly intact message. “Later, Kaz. I want your opinion on some of the changes I made.”
He led the two of them out of the throne room and through the newer, deadlier corridors, Macaroni following close by as Roark showed them the hidden trip wires and triggers and explained how each trap worked. Naturally, Zyra caught on to these quickly and began suggesting ideal placements for more.
“This is as many as I’m allowed to install through the Overseer’s throne,” Roark said, “but there’s no limit to how many we can improvise from materials around the level.”
“Like Roark and Kaz did with the pieces of the torture chamber,” Kaz said brightly, his big eyes shining with enthusiasm.
The Reaver clicked her tongue, annoyed. “Would’ve been nice to know that before I tossed all those heads down the stairs.” She sighed. “Now I’ll have to make a special trip to drag them back up. And we’ll need something else to slow down anyone Azibek might send up from below.”
Roark was curious what sort of trap she could fashion out of a baker’s dozen rotting heads, but Zyra didn’t elaborate. He decided to leave it a surprise.
Their next stop was the smithy, the room hotter than hells and cast in flickering red firelight. Roark filled his lungs with the smell of hot metal—a swirl of memories bringing a smile to his face—then set about laying out his plans for arming the first floor’s troops. Both of his vocal Greater Vassals agreed that smithing weapons was a good idea, but neither seemed terribly interested in the process or the individual components of the operation, so Roark left a closer inspection for later when he could do it alone.
From the smithy they went to the improved library. The new shelves were set up perpendicular to the old ones, adding scores of books as well as convenient hiding places for ambushes. Roark’s hands itched to search the pages of the new tomes, but he forced himself to be satisfied for the time being with running his fingers over their spines as he led Kaz to the cartographer’s desk. Delighted with the acknowledgment of his new Trade Skill—and the fact that there was something other than books to look at in the library—Kaz immediately plopped down and went to work testing it out.
Minutes later, the grinning Thursr handed Roark a detailed map of the lower floors of the citadel. It contained only the passages and rooms they’d been through or seen inside on their way to Dungeon Lord, but it was a brilliant start. Those maps would undoubtedly come in handy when it was time to take on Azibek and his cronies, especially if they could fill the rest of the levels in.
After the library, they toured the new, smaller antechamber at the bottom of the crumbling staircase from the bailey, where the heroes could either stick together and pick a direction or split up and follow both corridors—one to the library and the other to the great room. Roark took them through the great room, describing the attack formations he wanted to teach the Changelings and Reaver Bats once they respawned. Zyra seemed skeptical that he could convince a large group of Trolls used to fighting one another to trust one another long enough to band together, but Kaz was emphatic that it would work.
“Kaz will explain to them that he was a Changeling too once, but now he is a mighty Thursr because he worked together with Roark,” Kaz said, his voice cheery with optimism. “Every Changeling wants to become mighty. They will work together for that.”
While Kaz spoke, Roark led them down the final stretch of unexplored corridor. When they came out in the kitchen, the mighty Thursr fell silent.
A fire burned cheerfully in an enormous hearth complete with a spit large enough to roast a bison whole. Just outside, a thick iron arm with a hook on the end waited for a pot to be hung on it. Nearby sat a heavy scrubbed oak table with an assortment of knives stuck in a butcher block. Pots and pans and dried herbs hung along one wall over a set of low shelves and a series of bins, barrels, and sacks for storing ingredients.
Slowly, dazedly, Kaz shuffled through the room, touching things with the very tips of his huge calloused fingers as if he were wandering through a waking dream or some sort of holy place.
“Salt,” he whispered, dragging his claws through the sack full of white crystals in awe. He lifted up a handful and watched it run through his fingers. “So. Much. Salt.”
Then with a speed that belied his huge body, Kaz shot across the kitchen and crushed Roark’s tiny birdlike torso in his tree-trunk arms. Loud, wet sobs racked the mighty Thursr as he shouted nearly incoherent expressions of thanks directly into Roark’s ear and made promises of glorious stews, succulent roasted meats, and endless parades of spices, all enhanced with the wonder of salt.
When the storm of gratitude finally calmed enough for Roark to extricate himself, he patted the teary-eyed Thursr on the back and brushed away the wetness Kaz had left behind from his leather armor. Kaz’s reaction alone had been well worth the few traps he’d had to give up to purchase the kitchen.
“Kaz will begin cooking immediately,” the Thursr declared, puffing out his chest, back straight, hands planted on his hips. “Zyra has never eaten food before, and Kaz is starving. Roark must be hungry, too. Kaz will cook a meal to grief an army on!”
The hollow gnawing in Roark’s stomach agreed that a meal wouldn’t go amiss. A quick check told him that they still had a little more than an hour before the slaughtered creatures began respawning.
“You do that,” Roark said. “Macaroni and I are going to the smithy to start turning out weapons. Zyra—”
“Traps,” she said.
“Exactly. We’ll meet back here in an hour to fill our guts, then we’ll begin training the troops.”
TWENTY-SIX:
Hammer and Steel
The forge was bursting with heat by the time Roark returned. Macaroni chirped happily at the temperature change and immediately curled up along the stone side of the open forge next to the bellows. Not blessed with cold blood like the salamander, Roark stripped off his leather armor and set to inspecting the equipment scattered around the sweltering chamber as a sheen of sweat broke out across his brow, chest, and back.
Off the far wall was a small coal closet filled to the ceiling with porous gray lumps of foundry coke, a dust-covered scoop shovel stuck down in the pile. Nearby lay a workbench with a heavy vise set into the end. A set of shelves on the adjacent wall held a small pile of iron and steel ingots, some leather strips, iron ore, and an assortment of punches, swages, rasps, clamps, dies, as well as every weight, shape, and size combination of hammers and tongs a smith could need.
A quenching trough stretched along the wall closest to the forge, angled down to a grated drain in the floor. The trough must have been fed by an underground spring, as a steady trickle poured out of the lowest end of the trough into the drain, adding the quiet burble of running water to the crackle of the flames. Beside it was a pedaled grindstone, rough and unused, and an empty storage chest.
A leather tanning rack and a wooden enchanter’s table in the far corner both seemed out of place, but Roark was glad to have them. Intrigued, he studied the enchanter’s table. Its face glowed with blue and green arcane sigils and hummed with magical energy. The table’s slim top, coiling vine-like legs, and spidery supports looked delicate enough to burn up in this atmosphere of fire and slag. Eventually, he would need to inspect the workstation more closely, but for now he had to get working on the essentials. Enchanting would come later, once he had the time and resources for it.
He turned away from the spindly-legged table and focused
on the real jewel of the room: the anvil.
Nothing in the smithy could’ve been dismissed as cheap or second-rate, but the anvil at the center of the room nearly stole Roark’s breath away. A double-horned mass of solid forged steel, it came complete with both a square hardy hole and round pritchel hole, and even had a block on the back side for upsetting. He ran his palm over its perfect, gritty face. The only place he’d encountered an anvil that nice before had been in Berthora’s mage-smithy, and that old bag had tanned his hide the one time she caught him touching it. He’d been confined to the wrought iron apprentice’s anvil with a scarred and battered steel plate that disfigured as many projects as it completed because she didn’t want him “chasing your trash work and disfiguring my Selby.”
Roark might not have been in love enough to name his anvil, but he did have a hard time tearing himself away from it and going to the forge. A quick check showed him the fire needed to be built up to reach the optimum temperature to work metal efficiently. He added a shovelful of coke from the closet, then set to work pumping the bellows. When the coals reached that perfect shade of red, Roark brought over an ingot from the shelf with a pair of tongs and stuck it into the center.
A page of text appeared with a list of metals. When he focused on Iron, a new page opened listing the different pieces he could make.
Roark selected the simplest—Dagger—hoping to start with something basic to get a feel for smithing in Hearthworld.
[You do not have the proper materials to create an Iron Dagger! To create an Iron Dagger, you need (1) Iron Ingot, (2) Leather Strips, and (2) Iron Rivets. Materials for Blacksmithing can be found around Hearthworld or obtained by destroying items.]
Interesting. Though he knew he could knock out a handful of rivets in a few minutes, Roark opened his Inventory and searched until he found one of the smaller axes he’d taken off the griefed heroes. The option to improve or destroy the Shoddy Iron War Ax appeared.
Roark selected Destroy.
[Warning: Destroying items results in a small amount of materials lost to waste; therefore, destroyed items cannot be reforged as they were without the addition of more material. Are you sure you want to destroy this Shoddy Iron War Ax? Yes / No]
When he selected yes, the sound of metal tossed onto a scrap pile rang through the forge. A list of components appeared on the page before him.
[Shoddy Iron War A yielded (1) Iron Ingot, (2) Leather Strips, (1) Rivet, and (1) Stick of Wood.]
Encouraged by the gain, Roark destroyed the ax’s twin, then a longsword he was never going to use, watching the materials on the page grow in response. This was certainly faster and easier than deconstructing pieces back in his home world. He destroyed a Cracked Wood Bow that looked as if it had been waiting to be taken apart for years, then returned his attention to creating.
He stoked the coals back up to temperature and heated the iron once more, bringing it off when it glowed just the right shade of red. The water in the trough hissed as he quenched the glowing metal. He selected a peening hammer and went to work drawing the iron out. When it cooled too much, he started the process over again. The dagger began to take shape, and soon he was lost in the lovely toil and grind of smithing.
Writing spells had been Roark’s destiny from birth—it was the responsibility of the nobles of Traisbin to make out writs that sent the souls of the recently deceased on to paradise, seal graves against necromancy, and protect their people and holdings from plagues, raids, and invaders—but smithing was his love. Unlike the merciless paper and pen, metal was a forgiving medium. He didn’t have to worry about a misplaced comma taking his head off or a wrong word killing or crippling an innocent bystander.
If he made a mistake while smithing, he could just melt it down and begin again. It was humble, grueling toil that ended in a functional product. And the intensity of the labor was like a scouring for the cluttered head. When the sweat started pouring and his muscles started aching, everything else disappeared. He could throw his mind and body into the work, driving away every worry or distraction with the ringing chant of the hammer and the incense of burning coke and red-hot iron. Years after Bloederige Noct stole away the only family Roark had known, stepping inside a smithy felt like coming home.
Roark destroyed every weapon and bit of armor in his Inventory that he couldn’t or wouldn’t use—except the Lash of the Waning Blood Moon, which Azibek’s blessing wouldn’t allow to be destroyed—and made a variety of daggers, a handful of maces and axes, some polearms, and even a few crude bows and arrows, along with several suits of plate armor. The crafting went a lot faster in Hearthworld than it had back home, taking minutes instead of hours, and he only got faster the longer he worked. His Blacksmithing leveled up twice, allowing him to create Steel and Obsidian weapons and armor and improve Average items to Quality.
As he dismissed the notices and returned to work, he thought idly that he needed to find a hero with some obsidian weapons and armor to experiment with. He’d never smithed obsidian before.
By the time he ran out of reclaimed materials, he had enough weapons to arm each of the Trolls on the first floor. Roark turned to the steel ingots on the shelf and began the torturously slow process of creating ring mail armor. He’d left that until last because he knew the tiny interlocking links would be hardest to form and require the sharpest focus and most patience, and he hadn’t wanted to run out of time to make weapons.
The first shirt of Quality Steel Ring Mail leveled up his Blacksmithing again, and the notice included an addendum that he could now create Fulgurite weapons and armor and improve Quality items to Superior. He lost track of time on the next few shirts and flinched when another notice popped up shouting congratulations on leveling up his smithing yet again. Once the iron work was done, he ambled over to the leatherworking station, plopped down on a three-legged stool, and began sorting through the leather tools. Skiving knife, punch tool, edge beveler, edge creaser, sewing roulette, finger cots, and stitching awls.
Roark had never done much leatherworking back home, but the knowledge he’d gleaned from the Tailoring Trade Skill made the items instantly familiar. He didn’t have much raw leather, but he set to work all the same, carefully crafting several pairs of Shoddy Leather Boots, which brought his Tailoring up to level 2.
Finally, Roark stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his back and neck. He had less than twenty minutes left before the slaughtered creatures started respawning. It was time to shift focus from creating to improving what he’d already made. The work took him back and forth between the grindstone and the workbench, and he was practically running by the end of it. His tireless effort paid off, however, and he managed to upgrade the last set of Shoddy Leather Boots to Superior just as the first Changeling respawned.
Strangely enough, as the creatures began to reappear throughout the level, a new option appeared on the Character page of his mystic grimoire:
[Current World Stone Authority: Lesser Vassal 0 / 55]
[Use Mass Soul-Forge? Yes / No]
The World Stone must have somehow connected with his position as Overseer of the first floor, making it possible to create Lesser Vassals out of all the creatures under his command. How advanced would they be if he imbued them all with life and will? Perhaps not as aware as Kaz or Zyra, but their combined intelligence would pose a formidable threat to the invading heroes without a doubt.
Had Marek Konig Ustar thought the same thing the first time he’d used the stone on his own vassals?
Roark scowled. He’d already created one Greater Vassal without giving him a choice, and though Kaz seemed happier for it, knowing that he shared any action in common with the Tyrant King turned Roark’s stomach. No, the creatures of the citadel had been oppressed long enough; he wouldn’t cut down one dictatorship just to give them another under his name. He would let them choose whether they wanted to become his Lesser Vassals.
Roark stashed everything he’d made in the heavy-lidded storage chest, then bo
lted back through the corridors, Macaroni’s sticky feet slapping along behind him. Outside the hellish atmosphere of the forge, the layer of sweat on his body turned ice cold in seconds. He was nearly shivering by the time he made it back to the kitchen.
Kaz and Zyra were already sitting at the blocky, rough-topped table, eating. The Thursr held a huge bowl in both hands, drinking stew from it, his face a study in ecstasy. Zyra, meanwhile, tore chunks of bread off a crusty loaf and dipped them into her stew, making the sodden chunks disappear into the depths of her hood.
“Smelling good, Griefer,” she said, the ironic tone of her voice stopping just shy of outright mockery.
“Says the woman who stinks like she spent the last hour juggling decomposing heads,” Roark countered.
“Troll, not woman,” she corrected him, tossing back another chunk of dripping bread. “And I did. That should give you an idea of how badly you need a bath.”
“It’ll have to be later.” Roark took the proffered bowl of stew from Kaz and gulped down half the broth before coming up for air. It was as delicious as any stew he’d ever had back in Traisbin—savory with a touch of pepper, and its warmth staved off the sweat-shivers. “As soon as everyone’s respawned, I want to meet with them in the great hall and go over the strategy. Make something of a proposal.” He popped a chunk of meat into his mouth and chewed, relishing the tender gaminess. He looked up at Kaz. “This is even better than what that woman served us at the marketplace.”
Kaz grinned, his chest puffing up with pride. “Kaz only used a little salt this time. Much better than Kaz’s first batch.”
“You made two pots?” Roark asked.
Kaz shuddered at the memory, then seemed to remember his dignity and straightened up to his full height.
Rogue Dungeon Page 18
