Hineni sits at his table, his good hand is wrapped around the mug in order to keep it still. But he can’t stop his fingers from tapping from time to time against the dusty surface of the thing. His bad hand is bandaged and lays on the table. His eyes, wide and paranoid like an owl’s, stare out of the window, searching for any sign of an oddity or disturbance.

But today, the morning after what he considers to be his first ‘episode’, everything is as it should be.

A normal amount of people walk by, dressed in the normal amounts of normally odd clothing, equipment and armor. All of them move normally through the perfectly normal city that is having a very normal day, like any other. The sunshine is normal. The happy, excited voices are normal. The sounds of their lives are normal. The only thing out of place is the half-reflection of his own two eyes, which he sees in the dirty window. But that’s a fixable problem.

Hineni blinks and looks away.

Of course, he can’t really attribute the events of last night to some attack of his degenerated mind. He’d love to, but the problem is that when he opens his menu, the class and title designations are still there.

“Weaponsmith Hineni, chosen of the owl-god,” he mutters under his breath. He’s supposed to be a blacksmith, not a weaponsmith. He never specialized, because he never had the money for it and it seemed unnecessary. You don’t need to be a weaponsmith to make iron swords. His index, middle and ring fingers tap against the mug, one at a time.

One, two, three. One, two, three. One -

Hineni quickly slides the mug across the table, letting it out of his grasp. It falls off of the side and lands on the empty bench across from himself.

So there are only two lines of deduction left for him. Though, neither of them are reasonable. The first is that his insanity isn’t contained in sporadic episodes and is an ongoing issue. This would be, of course, sub-optimal.

The other option is that he unwittingly entered into a deal with some ancient forest deity. Is this unheard of? No, actually. There are countless myths and tall-tales of heroes and champions and fabled adventurers entering into such bargains with great gods or even just minor ones. There are of course, darker stories as well, of people who had naively undergone dealings with entities far more malicious.

Odd forest gods, water gods, fire gods, war gods, hell, even obscure love gods, all of these entities have been recorded as existing in historical canon. Some of them are even around and running around this very second on the surface of this very mortal world he inhabits, delving into the most horrible dungeons and accomplishing great feats together with their followers. Hell, there are literal temples dedicated to the gods, some of which they physically reside in, in this very city. He could walk down to the inner city, where there are a few literal gods residing right now with their followers. Except for the love god, but that’s a story that Hineni isn’t interested in thinking about right now. He doesn’t go to that neighborhood.

But an owl-god?

Hineni stares around the room, expecting to see the metal owl somewhere. He doesn’t. Who has ever heard of such a thing?

Who?

Hineni looks around the room.

…Wh-

The man jumps to his feet, stopping his mind from saying the word again a third time and his hands instinctively grip the edge of the table. He winces and recoils back immediately from the sting in his palm. What does an owl-god even want? Except to marry him, apparently. Though that might be his own fault.

Didn’t they used to have books on owls? His eyes rise upward, looking towards the door behind the empty receptionist’s counter, near the front door. He hasn’t been in there since he had arrived back here and looked inside one time. Hineni spares one last look towards his beloved window, before getting up and walking across the empty hall.

A long time ago, this used to be the main adventurer’s guild in this city. But after the incident, nobody was left to run it and the building stood empty, waiting for its owner to come of age. As such, it had everything an adventurer’s guild should have, at least by the standards of ten years ago. One of these things is a small library.

Moving behind the receptionist’s counter, he grabs the dusty door handle and opens it. The hinges creak loudly, as if complaining about being disturbed from their long sleep.

The smell is the first thing that hits him as he enters the library. The smell of old paper, of books and of air that has gone stale in an oddly comforting fashion. But the dust does ruin it all, just a little.

There is a lot of dust.

The library is a small, square room with two stories of height. It’s accessible from this door down here and the upper part of the library can be reached via either the door upstairs or the spiral staircase here on the side of the room. Though he isn’t sure if he trusts the metal construction anymore, in all honesty. It hasn’t been maintained since then.

“Owls… owls… owls…” mutters Hineni, puzzling about how things used to be sorted here. He used to spend a lot of time here as a child, but then he stopped reading, having found more enjoyment in the use of his new-found magical abilities. He flicks through the catalog, remembering the nice elf-girl who used to run the library. She was always kind to him. Though, she was a real stickler for the rules of the library and always shushed him or shooed him out if he got noisy, even if there was nobody else here and even if this was technically his family’s home.

The books on owls end up being downstairs, right close to the front of the room, under the ‘o-section’ of the obvious category, ‘animals’.

Hineni spends a while skimming through the pages of the book. There are a lot of different kinds of owls, apparently. But none of these pages refer to anything like an owl-god, obviously, perhaps. But what he does find is the hand-drawn depiction of something akin to what he is looking for. A brown, tawny owl. His fingers run down the page as he reads everything he can about them. Flipping pages, he then gets to the next topic, ‘courtship’. To his horror, he reads how these owls will select a partner through an intricate process of exchanging gifts and visiting each other. He quickly comes to understand his mistake.

He just wanted to give an owl some jerky. The owl apparently thinks that he wants to help it make some eggs. There is an obvious miscommunication here. Hineni looks back down at the page and at the last line.

‘Tawny owls choose only one partner and mate for their entire lives’

Shit. It doesn’t look like there’s an easy way out of this. Should he just tell it and clear the air? He doesn’t want to get married to an owl. It’s not that he has any prospects at all, let alone any better ones, but it just seems… odd?

Yeah. It seems odd.

Hineni tilts his head. Besides, he was just getting into the swing of bachelor life.

The man sighs, setting the book back into the shelf. That joke wasn’t true and it didn’t make him laugh. He’s so lonely. But… marrying an owl? Let alone an owl-god? He doesn’t even know it. It seems very rushed. His hand rests on the shelf. But what’s going to happen when he tells a literal god that he is taking back his offer? Is it going to take his refusal personally? It seemed really happy and excited last night, if not terrifying. So what happens if it turns that energy into something more malicious? He’s just a simple man, he can’t compete against an angry god, no matter how obscure it is.

This could be dangerous.

Besides all of that, he can’t have someone around him. He doesn’t want to wear his scarf and robe and hat all day, every day. Inside of the house. By himself, he can be free of such trappings. But only if he is alone. Only if nobody is there to see his disfigurement. He sets the book back into the shelf and leaves the library, his hand grips the door. He spares one last look inside, up towards the high shelves, spanning to the ceiling far above him.

There, far atop the shelves, far out of reach, sits the metal owl which stares down his way.

Hineni closes the door. He stops, standing there, his hand still on the handle.

Unable to stop himself, he opens it again and peeks inside the library a second time. The owl is gone from its spot. He closes the door.

Knowing full well that he’s being weird, Hineni opens the door for the third time, looking inside again a third time.

No owl.

He sighs in relief and shakes his head, ready to head to the forge to finish the special-order sword. He needs to get the money today, if he wants to afford food this week. He makes his way through the large structure and heads down the stone corridor that leads to the forge and, despite it being far too early for him to do this kind of work, according to his usual schedule, he sets to it.

Most of it he had finished last night anyways. He just needs to attach the hilt and the blade together and wrap it up nicely for the delivery.

The hilt still lays on the ground and he picks it up, looking it over. The engraving is indeed still there, together with a flake of what he assumes is a burnt piece of his skin. He rubs that off. Grabbing a ready-made, threaded blade from his barrel full of them, he sticks the long screw into the hole in the hilt and then, holding the blade between his legs, tightens it with his good hand. Attaching a nut to the protruding screw after that is simple enough.

- [Iron Blade{Short-sword}] -

- Quality -

Normal

- Composition - Iron: 89% Silicia: 2% Alumina: 5% Calcium: 2% Magnesium: 1% Impurities: 1%

- Quality Effects -

None

2 PHYSICAL DMG A short, sleek iron blade that is meant for a short-sword. Its edges are razor sharp. ‘Made by Hineni' Weight: 0.6kg Durability: 20/20 Value: 12 Obols

Now there’s just the matter of sanding it down, since the customer didn’t want a pommel. He sets the combat-ready sword down onto his workbench. Usually, sanding he would do by hand, as he finds the process very soothing. But this time, he’d have to use his abilities again. Sanding with only one hand sounds like an arduous task and he isn’t interested, honestly.

(Hineni) uses: [Blacksmithing{Sand Metal(Fine)}]

The edges of the nut come off as soon as the glow of his spell dissipates. It would be troublesome to unscrew later, should the customer need to have the blade exchanged. But this is what they wanted, so that’s going to be their future problem, not his, as far as he sees it.

Finally, grabbing some thread, some leather and some soft, black fabric from his pile of such things on the far end of the workbench, he sets to work, slowly wrapping the materials around the grip of the hilt. First some fabric for padding, sticking it in place with some glue. Then he binds the leather over it, threading it with the thick, strong string. It isn’t the ideal way to make a grip, the layering of the materials like this would cause a little bit of ‘slip’, especially during strong impacts. But he thinks it’s more comfortable and it causes less of a shake in the bones when metal hits metal.

Hineni nods, satisfied. The sword is done. A window appears.

- [Iron Short-Sword]{Gift of the owl-god} -

- Quality -

Normal

- Composition - [Iron Hilt]{XL}(Normal) [Threaded Iron Blade]{Short-Sword}(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 3 PHYSICAL DMG A custom-made, iron short-sword. Its hilt is unusually fat. ‘Made by weaponsmith Hineni - Chosen of the Owl God’ No pommel attached Weight: 1.23kg Durability: 30/30 Value: 300 Obols

Hineni stares at the window for a while, trying to observe all of the things wrong with it, all at the same time. But he doesn’t know where to start. He looks back down at the sword, lifting it up with one hand. It feels like a normal iron short-sword of his, barring the fat grip. But…

He swings the blade once through the air, expecting the usual sensation of metal cutting nothing. But instead, an arc forms behind the weapon, a whispering trail of displaced air that is visible, much like it would be in the sweltering heat of a dry summer. A gust of wind pushes back against him, tousling his sooty, black hair. It’s only there for a moment, but he can see it, he can feel it. This sword is enchanted, it does wind damage and a substantial amount for such a low-level item. Iron short-swords are level-one adventuring stuff. Enchanted equipment usually didn’t even start becoming a focus for adventurers until level ten at the very minimum.

He looks back at the menu. Three luck is powerful as well. Luck is a very rare stat for equipment to raise. Plus whatever the hell ‘obscurantism’ is. He’s never heard of that value before. Saying the word, his eyes wander down towards the monetary-value of the weapon and Hineni’s good hand begins to quake. He carefully sets the sword back down onto the table, stepping back as if it were a priceless artifact.

“Three hundred?!” he says to himself, reaching over the table for the work-order. The order was only for forty Obols. He looks at the sheet and then back at the sword. Clearly it had gotten a boon from what is apparently his new patron god…

Hineni rubs his head. Apparently, serving a literal god really has some tangible benefits, even an obscure god like the owl-god.

He had just made a month's worth of money for himself with one, single order.

“Whooo~” exhales the man, letting out a deeply held breath as he stares at this new item.