by Logan Jacobs
“She was my gran many times back, and she was as powerful as they come,” Dora continued. “But instead of marrying a powerful warlock-- a male witch, you know-- to strengthen the bloodline, Gran chose to marry a mortal. It diluted the bloodline so much that her children couldn’t practice magic like she could, and by the time I was born, I could only work with herbs in a practical sense instead of a magical one.”
“So magic is tied to blood?” I asked, and I was ready to draw on my power if she got all suspicious again. “Only those of magical blood can learn spells?”
“Aptitude plays a large role in magic,” she explained, “Anyone can learn if they tried, but someone of the blood will be better at it than someone who is not.”
“Sounds like I’ll need to talk to a mage to really figure this all out,” I muttered.
“Yes, I’m afraid I don’t have much knowledge when it comes to spells and such,” Dora laughed. “I’m sure we could send word to one of the towns in the east for a master to teach you if you wished.”
At least it wasn’t assumed that the God of Time should know all kinds of epic spells right off the bat.
“I have always been interested in your prophecy, Sebastian,” Dora admitted. “It is one of the first legends we teach to our children, just in case the dark times fall on that generation, and somehow I knew you would appear during my lifetime. I moved to this town to be closer to the catacombs, and I’m sure I sensed the moment you descended from the heavens to save us all.”
The scrawny healer reached out and held my hand, and her eyes were brimming with tears. “I know you can save this world, Sebastian, because you have saved this town many times over. Just as you will in the days to come.”
I gave the woman a smile and placed my hand over hers. After a cup of tea, the healer taught me how to mix a few simple poultices, but as she had insisted, none of it would be much help during the actual battle.
Because now there was no doubt in my mind that there was going to be another epic battle in Addington, and if I was going to go out there and destroy an entire army of trained soldiers, I had some serious preparations to make.
Chapter 12
There was only one place in the town to get all geared up for an epic battle, and when I got to Jax’s forge, he didn’t seem surprised that I had showed up. The burly man already had the hearth roaring, and from the smell of hot metal, he was elbow deep in smithing some new weapons or armor.
“Do you have some time to spare for your favorite god?” I asked as I made a new save point and entered the sweltering heat of the forge.
Jax pulled the red hot sword from the hearth and placed it on the anvil as he eyed me. “Seein’ as you’re the one who’s gonna be doin’ all the fightin’, I think I’d be an idiot not to.”
“Was Mahini here?” I asked as I walked up to the anvil.
“Ya just missed ‘er,” he chuckled. “Said she was going to ‘survey defenses.’”
“She’s always working,” I snickered.
“Aren’t we all?” he laughed. “Let me finish this up, and then I’ll help ya.”
The pounding of the hammer on the hot metal filled the forge with ringing and sparks, and it was a few minutes before the blacksmith put the weapon aside and gave me all of his attention.
I drew my feather sword and held it out for Jax. His eyes flashed with interest as he took it, and he went about doing his normal checks for how awesome the sword was.
“This thing has magic,” he stated. “It should weigh at least twice what it does.”
“Yeah, it has something called feathering,” I replied.
“Whaddya mean?” Jax asked as he narrowed his eyes at me. “How d’ya know something like that?”
“I can see its stats,” I said simply and touched the blade to demonstrate the ability. “Durability is at fifty-eight-percent, and it has the magical aspect of feathing.”
From the bewildered look the blacksmith was giving me, I might as well have started speaking in the goblin tongue, which meant that the stats I was seeing was another part of my god abilities, and I probably should keep it to myself.
Chime.
“This thing has magic,” Jax stated again. “It should weigh at least twice what it does.”
“I’ve been calling it my feather sword,” I said with a smile. “And I was hoping that I could sharpen it up a bit.”
The blacksmith ran his thumb along the blade with a hum. “It could definitely use a little attention.”
Jax made his way over to the grinding stone and grabbed a bucket that was sitting on the floor. After he filled it with some water from one of the barrels in the corner, he sat on the stool in front of the grinding wheel and started pumping the little pedal on the floor. I watched closely as he gently placed the blade against the stone with the sharp edge facing away from him.
“We didn’t cover sharpening when I made my own sword, but wouldn’t it be faster if the sharp edge was facing toward you?” I asked. “Having it facing away seems like it’s going against the grain or something.”
“Sure, if I want to stab myself in the gut,” Jax barked in laughter. “The wheel comes at ya, so the blade better be away.”
I wasn’t about to argue with the master, so I just continued watching as he carefully drew the sword side to side as the wheel spun. He kept the blade at an angle to the stone, and every now and then he would lift the sword up to inspect the edge he was making.
“Pour some more water over the stone, would ya Great One?” Jax asked as he inspected the edge.
He never stopped pumping the pedal, and after I trickled water over the stone as he had done before, he gave me a nod. He then flipped the blade around and started sharpening the other side. He paused several times to inspect this edge or ask me to pour some more water on the stone, and after about ten minutes, the blade’s edge looked as good as new.
“How’s that?” Jax asked as he handed the sword back to me.
I stepped back and gave it a few test swings before I touched the blade.
Durability - 80%
Weight - 0.2lbs
Quality - High
Magical Aspect - Feathering
Magical Ability - None
“Is this as sharp as it gets?” I asked when I saw the eighty-percent durability. I already knew he thought I was crazy for being able to see the stats, but I wondered if the blade couldn’t ever get a high durability because it was so light.
“I could shave with that edge, Great One,” Jax retorted.
If the edge was as sharp as the blacksmith could get it, then why was it only at eighty-percent durability? The sword Jax had given me for the mine expedition had been full durability, so I knew that the maximum durability was one-hundred-percent. So why was mine capped at eighty?
I spotted a sword leaning against the table of tools and thought it might have been the one Jax gave me for the mine expedition. I crossed the forge, picked it up, and quickly checked its stats. The durability had gone down during my use, so it was now at seventy-eight-percent.
“Let me try sharpening this one,” I said as I returned to Jax.
The burly man rose from the grinding wheel and gestured for me to take the seat. He walked me through getting the wheel going, and it took me a few minutes to get a rhythm down that was smooth and didn’t come to a jarring halt. My right ankle was already aching before I even put the blade against the stone.
“You’ll want to keep the angle low,” Jax growled over my shoulder, “and keep the pressure firm and consistent.”
I had always thought that sharpening a blade was as easy as getting a whetstone and just giving a few long strokes, but the reality was about as difficult as forging a sword in the first place. My first attempt gave me a wavy edge on the side of the sword, and I could tell Jax was barely containing his laughter.
Chime.
The second and third attempts were not much better, but by the fourth I could tell that the wavy line was getting a little less
dramatic. At the eighth attempt the wave was almost nonexistent, and by the tenth Jax told me it “wasn’t bad”. I wanted perfection, so I gave it another ten tries, and then I got an admiring whistle from the blacksmith.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” he asked me as he ran his thumb along the blade.
I kept my mouth shut and just gave him a smile.
When I had sharpened both edges of the sword, I checked its stats again. The durability was back up to one hundred, so I guessed that durability was the same as sharpness when it came to a sword.
I made a new save point.
“Hey Jax,” I began as I looked down at the newly-sharpened sword. “Can I borrow an armor stand and some different kinds of armor?”
“What would you need all that for?” he asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Just trust me,” I assured him. “I need to test out a theory of mine.”
I couldn’t remember how many dirty goblins I had killed with this sword, but its durability had gone down by twenty-two-percent before I switched to the feather sword. That meant there was some kind of ratio between the number of uses and the durability.
And I was going to find out what those numbers were.
I helped Jax set up three of the armor stands, each with a different chestplate on it. The one on the left wore a heavily stained cloth shirt that Jax didn’t mind getting shredded by the sword, the middle one wore a thick leather tunic, and the stand on the right had the chestplate I used in the mine.
“What are you playin’ at, Great One?” Jax asked once they were all set up.
“I’m gonna start banging on the armor to see how the durability works,” I answered.
I ignored the blacksmith’s bewildered look and swung my blade at the flimsy shirt. The material split easily beneath the sword’s peak sharpness, but when I checked the durability, it was still at one-hundred-percent. Even after a dozen slices, the durability didn’t change.
“Okaaaaay,” I said as I shifted to the leather armor.
The results were the same for both the leather and the plate armor. No matter how many times I bashed the sword against the armor stand, the durability didn’t change.
“What the hell?” I shouted.
I swung the sword against a large rock a few times to get out some of the frustration. On a whim, I checked the durability.
“Oh, shit, that worked?” I questioned as I noted the drastic change.
The rock had eaten a good chunk of durability from the sword with only a few swings. Already the blade was down thirty-six-percent. I swung it against the rock one more time and found that it lost another nine-percent.
“What’re you doin’?” Jax asked in a tone of utter disbelief.
I ignored him and swung the sword again. It dropped another eight with a second swing, and then another nine with a third swing. After several more swings, I learned that the sword would lose anywhere from five to ten-percent durability.
“You chewed it all up, Great One!” Jax roared as he snatched the damaged blade away from me. The edge was all ragged from use, and the durability was in the single digits.
While the blacksmith grumbled and returned to the grinding stone, I drew my feather sword and gave it a swing. It lost ten-percent right away, and another ten after a second swing. Each swing ate up ten-percent of its durability, and since I was going to restart anyway, I let the durability reach zero.
The blade snapped from the hilt, and I knew there was no repairing it.
“Five to ten-percent on a rock with a normal sword, and ten-percent with my feather sword,” I mused.
It was a pity the armor idea hadn’t worked, but I now knew the ratio against a rock and at least that was a step in the right direction.
Chime.
Jax’s sword was as good as new, and the armor stands were gone from the small clearing behind the forge. I had to assume the durability factor played a part against actual enemies rather than a dummy dressed up in armor, so I made a mental note to test it out again when I battled Lucian and his men.
For now, I had other things to learn from the blacksmith.
“So now that I know how to forge and sharpen a sword, how about you show me the steps in between?” I asked.
“I shoulda known you’d be wantin’ the next round,” Jax laughed. “Ya won’t be usin’ the sword during the battle, though. Still won’t be ready.”
“This baby will work just fine, I think,” I said as I patted the feather sword at my side. “But I’d still like to know the process, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, come on over, and let’s get this started,” Jax said as he gestured for me to follow him.
I created a new save point, and then I asked the burly man something that had been nagging me since the day we met.
“Hey, Jax, how did someone with your skills end up in a small village like this?” I asked. “I could see you working for a king or something.”
“You’d think,” the blacksmith let out a barking sort of laugh. “I used to work at the duke’s palace before I met Elrin. The duke liked my work well enough, but he didn’t care for my attitude.”
“But you’re such a ray of sunshine!” I laughed as the burly man gave me a companionable punch on the arm.
“Yeah, sunshine in the desert, maybe!” he growled back. “He had me train my replacement and then cast me aside. I already knew Elrin was lookin’ to build his own place, so I hopped at the chance to go with him when he asked.” The blacksmith shrugged. “Been here ever since.”
There was a brief silence, and I could only imagine Jax was transported back into his memories.
“We’re here to make swords, not gossip like old ladies,” Jax growled after a minute or so. “Let’s get to it, already.”
The blacksmith already had several weapons in various stages of completion, and he was able to walk me through each step of the process with a visual representation. He started with my dull-looking sword and started talking about the different cross-sections of a blade which could be seen when looking down the sword from its tip. Only my enemies would see it, but Jax said it was an important step in the process.
“Most common is known as the fuller,” Jax explained as he held up the sword I had sharpened. “See the groove down the middle? It’s good for catching blood when you stab a guy.”
We both laughed, and he brought over a strange loop tool. It had a long strip of metal in a U-shape with a pair of two short metal rods melded perpendicular at each end. It kind of looked like the profile of a crocodile if a crocodile only had front teeth that were dull instead of pointy.
“This is called a fullering tool,” Jax said with a grin. “Can ya guess why it’s called that?”
I just laughed since I knew the question was rhetorical. The blacksmith heated my dull sword in the hearth and placed the fullering tool on the anvil. He secured it with an antique-looking clamp, and when the sword was glowing orange, he brought it over and stuck it underneath the two metal rods so that they lined up in the center of the blade. Then he grabbed one of the smaller hammers and started pounding on the end of the fullering tool so that the two rods smashed together against the blade.
After a long round of pounding, he held up the blade for me to inspect. A faint groove had already formed, but even my inexperienced eye could tell that it wasn’t even close to done.
I tossed the sword back into the hearth, and this time I took the hammer to the fullering tool. I followed Jax’s guideline as best I could , but the groove wobbled along the center of the blade like a drunk trying to pass a sobriety test on the side of the road.
Chime.
Like when I was first learning how to use the forge, it took me several dozen attempts before I was able to smash out a perfectly straight line down the middle of the blade. By this point, Jax was no longer surprised by how quickly I picked up these skills, and he moved right along to the next step.
“This part’s easy,” Jax said as he tossed my blade ba
ck into the flames of the heart. “We’ll need the brine to quench the metal and keep it from being brittle and shattering.”
The blacksmith dragged the barrel of brine over to the hearth, and when the entire sword was bright orange, he snatched it up with a pair of tongs and dunked the whole thing into the barrel. Thick steam and hissing filled the forge as Jax lifted and dunked the sword several times into the brine. He repeated the process several times before removing the sword and laying it on the table near the anvil.
“It’s gotta dry,” Jax said when he caught me staring. “And then you’ll have to grind it down until it gets its shine.”
For this step, he grabbed one of the daggers that were supposed to be a gift to Lucian. Half of it was already ground to a shine, and the process seemed similar to sharpening the blade, but when I got a change to try it, I had Jax barking into my ear about too much pressure.
Chime.
It only took a few attempts to get the finishing process mastered, and then Jax walked me through making a pommel and guard. Both were similar to forging and finishing a sword except with much smaller parts involved and far less heating and reheating. The blacksmith completed the second dagger as he showed me the process before handing both finished blades to me.
“These were meant for Elissa’s husband, and that’s you, not that whiny lord outside our walls,” Jax growled.
I grinned, took one of the blades, and quickly checked its stats.
Durability – 100%
Weight – 1lb
Quality – Excellent
Magical Aspect – Made with Love: Extra Durability
Magical Ability – None
It was the first time I had seen excellent quality, but it was the extra durability aspect that really attracted my attention. I grabbed the other dagger and found its stats were identical except that it didn’t have the extra durability aspect to it.
“So the aspects are random,” I muttered to myself. Jax gave me a confused look, but I ignored it. “These are great, Jax, thanks. I can tell you made this with love.”
