Today is going to be a wood-day. He collected a lot before, but he’s been neglecting it for the last week because of… well, because of everything.

Hineni sits downstairs at his favorite booth, watching Obscura, who is apparently now taking her turn to sleep, sitting up high on the rafters of the downstairs hall in the form of a small owl.

Looking down at the mug in his hands, he stares at the oddity. It’s full.

Turning his head, Hineni stares out of his favorite window, the steam of his tea rising up past his face as he looks out at the crowd walking past him and his world. Everyone looks so excited today, he notices. Maybe there’s an event in the dungeon again?

He sees some of his favorite adventurers walk past, on their way to the dungeon. But today he notices that the sting of seeing them pass by his window doesn’t really sit as deeply as it used to. He’s not jealous of them today, not really. He doesn’t secretly wish that he was in their group. He’s not exactly content, but he’s… soothed.

Hineni sighs, finally taking a sip of his tea, feeling his shoulders droop down and release about ten years of tension, give or take. Today is going to be a good d-

*DHUNK**DHUNK**DHUNK*

An explosion of feathers comes from above his head and he scrambles, spilling tea on the dusty book and his hands. Cursing, he shakes the book out as well as his arms. Was that the door? Oh no. Hineni leans over sideways, looking from his bench towards the door. It’s taken a long time, but people have finally managed to work up the courage to not only find his house, but to knock on his door.

*DHUNK**DHUNK**DHUNK*

Hineni nervously gets up, looking up towards the rafters. Obscura is gone, apparently having been scared off by the loud knocking. Though he’s sure that she’s just watching from some dark corner. He can feel her eyes drilling into him.

Pulling his yellow scarf tighter around his face, Hineni sets on his wizard’s hat and pulls it down low. Opening the door a split, he bars it from opening further with his boot and looks outside.

“Yes?” asks Hineni warily, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight that seems to be right in his face.

“Hineni, chosen of the owl-god?” asks an objectively attractive man in daring, red dragon-scale armor. A lavish carriage with open doors stands behind him.

Hineni looks around, gesturing for the man to lower his voice. “Yes?”

“Our master, the god of the forge, requests your presence for a meeting,” says the man, standing upright tall, speaking very loudly, as if this was some great, knightly honor he was bestowing. “This is a great, rare opportunity and -”

Hineni turns his head around, looking at the dingy building behind himself, a feather falls down from above, floating through the air.

“- No, thank you,” interrupts Hineni, shutting the door and walking away, shaking his head. An audience with a god? That sounds like a lot of stress. A popular god like that would not only have a huge number of people around him, but would probably live in a very inconvenient place, like in a nice neighborhood in the middle of the city. He’d have to go out, in broad daylight, to a populated part of the city, to a nice place that he’s never been to meet a literal god he doesn’t want to interact with, who is surrounded by hundreds of likely very talented, gifted and incredibly beautiful people.

Pass. He has enough inferiority complexes as is.

The door is knocked on again behind him, but he just ignores it and picks up the feather, returning to his window and setting it down on the table. Listening to the man knock on the door a couple more times, Hineni calmly sips his tea and watches the crowd go by, on their way to the dungeon.

Tonight he’s going to get some wood again, he decides. Maybe Obscura will come with him? They could take a walk to and through the forest together? That’d be nice. Now he just has to work up the courage to ask her. Hineni sips his tea, lifting the feather to smell it for a moment.

Is that a weird thing to do? He doesn’t know. It smells like owl, obviously.

Night falls. Hineni goes out to the forest, not able to find Obscura. So he just goes by himself and collects wood, feeling a little lonely in an oddly nostalgic way. Then, when he returns home with a load of new wood, he gets ready to make some more weapons. There were a lot of interesting orders at the guild tonight.

Opening his front door, he finds Obscura waiting for him downstairs. She makes a big deal out of his earlier interaction with the stranger, prancing around him in a circle like a proud hen and flapping her arms, lavishing him with praise for his unwavering loyalty to her. “Obscura is touched!” she hoots. “Brave Hineni! Loyal Hineni!” she hoots, continuing to dance a circle around him. Hineni doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the biggest reason he ignored the invitation was because he just didn’t want to leave the house. “Obscura brings gifts!” she says, holding out her hands. “THREE!” she hoots. Hineni stares down at her hands. “Obscura brings three frogs! THREE!” she says, extending the headless, eviscerated frogs out towards him.

“Uh…” Hineni rubs his head, taking the frogs. “Thank you.” He stares down at them, wondering how he’s going to get out of this. He’s certainly going to have to eat at least one. “…Want to eat them together?”

“WHOOOO~” Obscura, apparently embarrassed by his offer, vanishes in an explosion of feathers. Hineni shrugs, bringing the frogs to the kitchen. It has an ice-cellar, but there hasn’t been any actual ice down there in years. So in his own self-interest, he decides to just gut and cook the frogs right away to get it over with. At least this way, they’ll be palatable to him. He only needs to eat one, he’s sure he can get her to eat one too. The third one, he’ll say he’s saving for later. Hineni nods. This is a good plan.

He goes about it, finding it working out exactly as he had envisioned and then, one frog’s worth of meat fuller, he begins his forging work.

He’s always liked working with metal. There’s something simple about it. Something easy. Metal is a lot easier to work with than people are. It doesn’t ask any questions, it doesn’t stare and point or make any snide remarks, it doesn’t offer any cruelty that isn’t forced through it by another hand. A piece of metal is a piece of a metal at the end of the day, whether it’s a fork, a knife, a sword or a horseshoe. It’s just a thing.

That’s what makes it easy.

The hammer strikes out against the blade of the two-handed sword that he’s making at Obscura’s behest, it isn't an order from the guild. Sparks flying every which way as the hammer imprints itself into the glowing surface of the flattened iron, like a fingerprint left in wet dough. Each strike of the hammer, each shift of the metal over the old anvil, each twist and turn and strike and bend and blow is a unique signature of him as a craftsman. In metal, these impressions, these marks, they stick.

Hineni watches his arm swing in a rhythmic motion over and over, staring at the red-metal for far longer than he should without blinking. People who are imprinted on tend to shed these marks off of themselves after a while, or even just at the most convenient moment. Friendships end, loyalties favor. Something as simple as being scarred might lead to one being outcast from groups they were once a part of. An imprint will stay in a piece of metal until you try and hammer it out. But the imprint one person makes on another? Those can be erased, overwritten and forgotten in the blink of an eye.

He remembers as much. He used to have a lot of friends, before the incident. A lot of acquaintances. A lot of family. It only took one little spark and ‘poof’, like magic, all of those things were gone.

The man wipes his forehead on his shoulder, returning back to work a moment later to get his thoughts back to where he needs them to be.

Wood is fine for a lot of things. But wood only lasts so long. It’ll break sooner, rather than later. Plus it still veers more towards the ‘natural’ side of the world. Not to say that metal isn’t something natural, but… it just has a way of holding the ‘touch’ that one imparts on it longer. Metal doesn’t forget.

Literally. You take a cursed, wooden object and burn it in a fire, you got yourself a nice, cozy blaze to cook your stew over. But if you throw a cursed sword into a smelter and break it down, the metal will retain the curse and everyone who eats with the hundred forks made out of that sword is gonna have a real bad time. Hineni explains as much to Obscura, who is watching him work.

“That’s a real story by the way,” he says, looking her way for a second, before turning back and instinctively lowering his gaze. “The fork thing. A ton of people died.” She hoots, sitting up on the ledge, next to the metal owl that she has dragged back up to sit next to her.

Hineni lifts the blade of the two-handed sword up with a large pair of smith’s tongs, bringing it to the barrel of water. Today, he was going to make three big items. Three. A two handed sword, a war-hammer and a large battle-axe. Three. If only for the sake of diversity. Sure, daggers are cheap and easy. But he wants to get better at weaponsmithing too. It's a lot of work. Far more work than he would usually try to undertake in one night. It's honestly on the edge of impossible for his usual pace. But the truth is, despite his inward projected rant about people being untrustworthy, he still feels an odd desire to impress Obscura.

An hour later, the first weapon is complete.

- [Iron Claymore]{Gift of the owl-god} -

- Quality -

Normal

- Composition - [Iron Hilt](Normal) [Threaded Iron Blade]{Claymore}(Normal) [Iron Nut](Normal) [Leather Wrap](Normal) [Black Cloth Wrap](Normal) [Black Cord](Normal) - Quality Effects -

“Chosen of the owl-god”

Adds additional attributes to the attached weapon - Title Effect - “Gift of the owl-god” +3 OBSCURANTISM +3 WIND DMG +3 LUK 6 PHYSICAL DMG A custom-made, iron claymore. It is fairly heavy, but offers a large reach and significant damage. ‘Made by weaponsmith Hineni - Chosen of the Owl God’ Weight:3.33kg Durability: 30/30 Value: 543 Obols

Holding the sword up in the air, Hineni looks it over in the firelight. “So if I’m holding this, you’re getting some of my magic?” asks Hineni, looking at the odd stat, ‘obscurantism’.

Obscura nods.

It isn’t unheard of for a god to have a unique stat, such as obscurantism. Generally, every living person has access to the base six stats, strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, luck and love. Each of those have different effects that can vary strongly depending on your personal life-situation, upbringing, class, environment and so on. The followers of the wealth-god have access to a stat called ‘avarice’ that works like a variant of the luck-stat, but exclusively for money.

Obscurantism is apparently something like this, an extra stat that only people who used ‘Obscura’s’ weapons could have access to, for the price of a minuscule amount of their passive magical energies.

He wonders what it does?

It is two nights later, being the breaking of the third night. Hineni sits at the table with shaking hands, setting down the pile of coins onto it. He had gone to the guild and sold all three of the new weapons that he had made, earning just about seven-hundred fifty Obols. Using the back-exit, he even had managed to lose any pursuers once again. What a good day this is turning out to be. Though, in a sense, he knows that his luck can’t last forever.

The house smells vaguely of fire, but he’s used to that, so he doesn’t really notice it as he’s busy staring at the pile of money. What is he supposed to do with all of this? If he makes this kind of money every night… Maybe he can buy some real food to stock the kitchen? Or maybe he could get something for Obscura? Would that be odd? They're engaged, after all. So it's legitimate for him to buy her a present, right? Hineni tilts his head. He doesn't want her to think that he's weird.

“Am I rich…?” asks Hineni, looking around the empty skeleton of a house, his eyes wandering over the many empty tables. He only now notices the commotion coming from the other rooms. “Obscura?” he calls, receiving no response.

Actually, it really smells like fire in here today. A lot. A suspiciously worrying amount, in fact.

Throwing the coins into his sack, Hineni walks past the counter and into the kitchen, letting out a surprised yelp as he sees Obscura running around in a panic, waving her robed arms around in distress. Several pans atop the large stoves are on fire.

Not the contents. There are no contents. The pans themselves are on fire, handles and all.

Seeing him, Obscura stops in her tracks, halfway across the kitchen and the two of them stare at each for a second, the color having left her face. Before he can react, there is an explosion of feathers and she vanishes by the time he looks back, lowering his arm. Hineni turns his attention towards the fires and now takes his turn to panic.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” he yells, staring at the high flames rising up and licking the stone walls. Fire creeps along the stove-top, spreading sideways across the counter surfaces. He takes a step forward, wanting to act against the problem. But instead, Hineni freezes. Smoke has long since filled the room and has started leaking out into the others.

He stands there, staring with wide eyes, as the flames dance around in front of him, swaying from side to side as they grow, as they consume more and more and seem to mock him and his inability to stop them as they do so. Their movements are mesmerizing, hypnotizing. He feels the heat on his skin, he feels the glow reaching his eyes, warming them with its distant touch. He feels his heart beat, but he can’t move his legs. He feels the sweat pearling down the tips of his fingers, but he can’t bring them to twitch. He’s stuck. There’s a giant bucket of sand beneath the counters for just such an occasion, but he can’t bring himself to go towards it. It’s like the fire is telling him to stay right where he is and he’s listening to its command.

“Look out!” says a sharp, half-strange voice from behind him. The room shakes and the light from the large hall is entirely drowned out and shadowed in that instant in which the world seems to be ending in. Hineni’s head twists around just in time in horror to see the cascade of water rushing towards him. Some very out of place, ceiling high wave of water that looks like it’s surging straight in from the ocean itself, flows right into his kitchen. As if some great, cosmic joke were being played on him, Hineni now finds himself able to move. But he doesn’t get far as the water surges over him, swallowing him and the entire kitchen all in the same instant.

(Rhine) has damaged (Hineni) for {5} DMG with his [Cascade]{Water} ! [HP: 34/39]

The world roars around him and Hineni tumbles and tosses around, crashing down over the stones of the kitchen floor as the wave hammers him down into it. Entirely orientationless, he spins around over and over, grabbing onto the leg of a table and holding on as tightly as he can.

Then, a very confusing moment later, the water begins to recede, sinking away and spreading out into the rest of the house. Coughing and spluttering, Hineni pushes himself up with his arms, water dripping from his soaking wet body as he looks around himself in shock at his extinguished, but now entirely flooded kitchen. This is going to cost a fortune to repair.

Someone laughs in an odd, almost theatricality triumphant voice. Lifting his head, water dripping off of his soaked hat, breathing through his soaked scarf with great difficulty, he looks at the figure standing there. The blue-robed caster. The child, the girl from the adventurer’s guild, who had asked him who he was the other night when he had his panic attack and ran away. She has one wet boot planted on an overturned pot like some conquering warlord, her fists against her hips as she clearly displays ample pride at her achievement.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” yells Hineni, repeating his question from before at both her and at Obscura. He just doesn't know what to make of the situation anymore.

“You’re welcome,” says the intruder in his home, holding a hand smugly in front of her mouth. “It’s not every day that someone gets saved by Rhine! The river-wizard!”

All of the hanging pans and pots that were mounted on the wall take this opportunity to fall all at the same time, clambering loudly behind him.

“You flooded my house,” argues Hineni.

She stops, turning her head towards him as she maintains her stiff, heroically posed posture. “It was on fire.” says the caster, frowning, clearly insulted at his lack of immediate gratitude as she looks down at him.

“How did you even get in here?!” asks Hineni, getting up. Apart from himself and Obscura, there hasn’t been another person inside of this house since then.

The caster turns their head away, still not having bothered to remove her boot from the pot. “I saw a bunch of smoke, so I broke your window.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!” asks Hineni, scrambling up to his feet, slipping around on the greasy floor and catching himself on a cabinet, as he pushes past the stranger and looks out of the door towards his favorite window.

He sighs in relief, seeing the damaged glass. It’s still fine. The stranger had broken a different window.

“You’re welcome!” repeats the sharp voice from behind him. Hineni doesn’t really know how to make heads or tails of the situation right now honestly. He sighs, trying to calm himself down. Everything is fine. It’s just some water damage. It’s not like he ever used the kitchen anyways. And it's better than a house-fire, right? He could have lost his entire home if not for the stranger.

His eyes wander up towards the ceiling, where he sees Obscura sitting behind a beam in one of her smaller owl forms. Hineni raises his arms to his sides, gesturing to broadly everything in the room all at once. Obscura quietly hoots and hides behind the beam.

He sighs, rubbing the water out of his face with his wet hands.

“So, do you got a job for me, Mr?” she asks, looking around. “Is the owl god impressed?”

“Thank you for your help. Please leave,” says Hineni, shaking his head. “I need to clean this up,” he says, looking around the room. “…Somehow.”

“Wow, rude!” argues Rhine, crossing her arms. “Some way to treat your hero.”

“My… h-” Hineni blinks, pointing to the water that is soaking into the floorboards. “Couldn’t you have used a smaller spell at least?”

“No.”

“It wasn’t that big of a fire,” argues Hineni. “It was just a couple of pans!”

“I told you already, dummy!” snaps the surprisingly rude intruder back at him. She lifts her hand, pointing at her chest again with her thumb and a prideful smirk on her face as she retakes the same overly dramatic pose from before, standing tall with one foot on an overturned pot. “I’m Rhine! The river-wizard!”

The room is quiet. Hineni stares at her. “…I don't care where you pee?”

“River-WIZARD!” she yells at him. “I’m Rhine! The river-WIZARD! Not 'wizzer'!” Hineni blinks, staring at her. The prideful figure stands there for a second, as if frozen, seeing that she isn’t getting a response. She turns her face towards him. “So, I have river-magic. I can only use river-magic,” explains Rhine.

Hineni looks around the room. “That’s dumb. What the hell is river-magic?

“Huh?! You’re dumb!” counters the intruder, letting out a bothered exhalation as he pulls the pot away out from under her boot and sets it down onto the soaking wet counter. “It’s obviously river-based magic! It’s in the name!”

Hineni stares at her. “Please take the front door when you leave.”

The cool expression of the strange child is quiet for a moment as the two of them stare at each other and then, the silence breaks in an instant as Rhine bursts into tears and runs away, her stiff, prideful composure shattered in an instant as she’s reached some, in his eyes, arbitrary limit. She flails her arms, slipping on the wet floorboards and falling down, before getting up and running away, clearly snot-crying. All of this happens in the span of about five seconds and Hineni, now entirely lost, stands there, dripping wet and listens to the front door slam a moment after.

He wants to sigh and say something about the kids these days being weird, but he realizes he doesn’t have much room to speak in. His eyes shoot back up towards the beam and he sees Obscura, quietly having attempted to sneak away, already halfway across it.

He clears his throat and the owl turns her head. The two of them lock eyes.

“Whooo~” hoots Obscura. She opens her wings out wide, doing an odd shuffle from side to side along the rafter. “Cute Obscura, seductive Obscura, good Obscura! Good!” she hoots, swaying around in some kind of appeasement dance that clearly isn’t working. “Hineni can’t be mad at Ob- Scu- Ra! Good!”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re helping me clean this.”

“Who~?”

“You!” snaps Hineni, pointing up at her.

“Whooo~?”

“You are,” he says, shaking out his wet clothes and prying off his scarf to finally be able to breathe right again. “Just as soon as I get some dry clothes,” he says. “You better be here when I get back, or you’re sleeping in the forest.”

“Rude! Rude Hineni! Bully!” hoots Obscura. “Mean! Big mean! Mean! Rude! Who…~”

“It’s not mean!” he yells down the hall as he walks away. “You set the house on fire!”

“Pans! Pans! Not house! Pans!” hoots the owl after him and he rolls his eyes, his wet boots squelching as he walks up the stairs. A few minutes later, having hung up all of his clothes and changed into some dry ones, Hineni makes his way back down to survey the damage, grabbing some towels on the way. The windows in the kitchen and the hallway outside of it are open as he approaches again from the back.

A rushing wind blows past him, tousling his wet strands of hair as he makes his way back. “What the…?” Covering his face with his hand, Hineni presses his way forward, pushing through the strong, unnatural wind present in his home that surges through the doorways and windows.

Obscura, having taken the form of a far larger owl than before, sits on the rafters that Hineni is becoming increasingly nervous about, given her new size and flaps her wings, creating a magical wind that surges around the kitchen, rattling the few pots and pans that remain in any coherent place around and making even more of a mess than before. But at least it's drying the area out.

A minute later, Obscura seems to tire out and slows down, panting and letting her wings droop.

“Thanks,” says Hineni, taking his towel and starting to wipe off the counters, shaking his head. Working his way around the counter, he reaches the stove-top, looking at the mess there is. Eggs. Milk. A giant lump of soaked-through flour. The pans have all been washed away, except one. He looks at it, picking it up with the towel. It’s entirely coated in oil. Not just the surface, but the handle, the bottom. All of it. It’s like somebody dunked it into a vat of oil. Did she do this? Well, obviously. It’s lucky she didn’t get burnt… he thinks?

Hineni blinks, realizing his dickishness. He doesn’t even know if that’s true. Turning around, he looks up towards the rafter. But Obscura isn’t there. He looks down, seeing her sneaking away to the other side of the kitchen with a towel in hand, in her half-human form, perhaps hoping to appease him by just being quiet and working on the other side of the room.

“Are you alright?” asks Hineni, she freezes in her tracks, nervously looking over her robed shoulder, likely wary of repercussions. “Sorry. I should have asked you right away,” he says, turning back to set the pan to the side in the basin. Some of the eggs are still salvageable and the milk is sealed. But the flour is no good anymore. “I’m still getting used to being around people.”

“Whooo~” There is an explosion of feathers and a second later, Obscura takes the shape of a normal owl. She flies to the counter on her side of the room, straining herself by dragging the towel over it with her beak.

He blinks, apparently not going to get a ‘human answer’ to his question. Shrugging, he shakes his head and keeps working, wondering if maybe he couldn't have handled this situation better.