“Excuse me, sir! No fire allowed inside of the premises,” says Kleidet, talking to a man who sits at one of the booths. He seems to be some kind of shaman or a druid or something of that nature and holds his hands above a bowl on the table. A stick of incense burns within it, a vapor of smoke rising up towards the rafters.

His hands, old and grayed, move through the smoke as he continues his tonal chanting.

“Excuse me!” says Kleidet, trying to get his attention.

It has been a week since the kidnapping incident.

Tensions were high at first and the next day was certainly awkward, to say the least. But she seems to be taking the whole situation better than Hineni had expected, in all honesty.

She plants her hands on her hips, leaning in towards the man, grabbing the stick of incense. “Excuse me!” she says a third time.

Hineni turns back towards Sockel.

“How’s the quest board going?” he asks.

“Pretty good,” she replies. “We got a new quest today from a farmer outside of town,” says Sockel. “He’s been having some problems with the undead.”

“The undead?” asks Hineni.

Sockel nods. The restaurant is mostly empty at the moment, given that it’s still early. There’s only the chanting shaman and Kleidet to fill the space with their voices as they argue. “Yeah,” says Sockel. Her ears twitch. “Word on the street is that the first skirmishes started in the south,” she says. “The ambient magics are starting to go wild.”

Hineni crosses his arms. “You mean like the kind that keeps Eilig alive?” he asks.

A laugh comes from the side. Hineni looks down at Rhine.

“The world is full of strong currents of ambient magic,” says Rhine. “Especially the deep-forests of the south. Everybody knows that.”

“Boy, were you laughing at me?” asks Hineni, lifting an eyebrow.

Rhine stiffens up immediately, his face going pale. “N- no!”

Hineni puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve gotten bolder,” he says, nodding, pleased. “That’s a good thing,” says Hineni approvingly. He lifts a finger. “- But don’t lie,” he warns. “Commit to what you do.”

“Sorry,” says Rhine, lowering his head. “I got scared for a second.”

“Don’t worry, twerp,” says Sockel. “I’ll take him out if he causes any problems.”

Hineni looks at them. “You two do remember that you work for me, right?” he asks.

“Sure, sure,” replies Sockel, waving him off. “Anyways, large scale fights like that are going to screw up the ambient currents of magic,” she says.

Hineni shakes his head. “What does the war in the south have to do with a farmer all the way up here?” he asks, not quite understanding the connection.

“They’re like rivers!” exclaims Rhine. “- The ambient currents. So if something messes with the magic down there on a large scale, the leylines are going to change directions and flow a different way instead.”

Hineni pieces everything together. “So… a farmer up here has a problem with the undead, because of a war three months away by foot?”

“Sure does,” says Sockel. “Probably. Either that or there’s a necromancer playing some pranks.” She shrugs. “Either way, we got the quest.”

“Could this affect us?” asks Hineni.

“If by ‘affect us’, you mean make us a boatload of money, then yes,” replies Sockel, pointing at him with her pen. She bends down and grabs a ledger, flipping it open. “See this?” she asks, pointing at a chart of numbers. “These are our quests. The last two days, we’ve had twice as many as the weeks before.”

“Two days isn’t a lot of time,” notes Hineni.

Rhine butts in. “With the leyline current shifted, a lot of stuff is going to get weird,” he explains. “Monsters spawning in places they didn’t exist in before, spells acting strange, there’s even a story about a dungeon-break happening once because of this.”

Hineni nods, looking over towards their, objectively owly, quest-board that he had paid a tidy sum for.

“There’s no time to profit like in a crisis, huh?” he asks.

“Now you’re getting it,” replies Sockel. “People are coming inside in droves to get help killing monsters and stuff now.”

Hineni looks around the empty restaurant.

“- figuratively speaking,” she adds on.

The door opens and a man walks in, holding a piece of paper. “Hello, I’d like to hang this up?” he asks, showing it to Sockel.

She points at the board. “Sure, just put it up there. We’re asking for three percent of the sum payment in advance.”

The man nods, heading over to the board and pinning up his quest. Hineni stares at it, while the stranger walks past him to pay.

‘Help wanted: Wild slimes running amok at the eastern logging camp’.

It is time for them to rest, the work day having come to an end.

However, Hineni is alone in the forge, hammering away. Fumes rise around him, blowing past his face together with the sparks of the struck metal, which he hammers against.

The order for the military is a substantial one, not only in the quantity of weapons ‘requested’, but also in their payment for these. They’re paying above market price, which is unusually generous.

If Hineni had to guess, it’s because they’re trying to stifle and dissent from any crafting gods, right off from the start.

‘Gods’. The word rings through his mind and he holds the hammer aloft for a moment, thinking.

What about the gods in the south? Are there any there, staying to fight the war?

Are any of the gods from this or the other regions moving down to fight there?

What does a battle between actual gods look like?

It must be catastrophic, he realizes. If large-scale skirmishes of simple things like men and elves could already disrupt the magical flows of the world, then what would happen if -

“Who~” hoots a voice from above.

Hineni lowers his hammer and lifts his tired eyes towards Obscura, who is hanging there, upside down in the air.

“The sun is here soon, yes?” she asks. “The Hineni husband will sleep now, yes?”

Hineni shakes his head, looking at Obscura. “I’ll come to bed later. I’ve got to finish a few more pieces. She frowns. “We’re not going to make it in time if I don’t pull a few all-nighters,” he explains. “It’s just too much for me and Rhine otherwise.” Obscura rubs her tired eyes and floats down towards the ground. “Careful. The metal’s hot.”

“Hineni’s high room is always hot,” says Obscura, pressing her head against his chest and holding him. Hineni sets down his tongs and hammer and takes a step away from the anvil, pulling her with him, just to be safe.

“Sorry,” says Hineni. “But we’re going to be in huge trouble if we don’t make it in time,” he explains. “I don’t know if they’ll really take the building from us, but if the war gets serious, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

Obscura clicks with her mouth. “She will eat them if they try.”

“That’ll just cause us more trouble,” says Hineni. “Worst case, we’ll just move to the forest and live in a tree together,” he suggests.

She looks up towards him hopefully.

“But it’ll be pretty cramped. Not many big trees left,” he says.

Obscura sighs. “Yes. The big-now-small-forest is dying.” She shakes her head. “Now the big-big forest will too die.”

“I don’t know about that,” says Hineni. “The south is a big place.”

She hoots.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get us through it.”

“Obscura will help, yes?” she asks, looking around. “She is three times as strong as the river-boy.”

Hineni shakes his head. “You already do enough. Go to bed, I’ll catch up with you soon,” he says, kissing her forehead. “I promise.”

She sadly hoots, rubbing her head against his chest and then floats away towards the door. She sits down on the floor, which he recalls her telling him once is for frogs, and leans against the wall.

Apparently she’s going to stay here to show her support, if nothing else.

“What?” asks Hineni. “No alluring dances anymore?” he asks, remembering the first few days after they had met.

She perks up. “Does Hineni want?” she asks, holding her arms out to the side. “Graceful Obscura, yes? Irresistible for Hineni, yes?” she asks, getting up and dusting herself off. “He is not bored of Obscura’s feminine mystique?”

Hineni shakes his head and Obscura obliges, repeating her dance from back then.

This time, it is in regards to its intentions, successful beyond comparison.

And by the time they are done, Hineni finds that the fire of the forge has gone out and that he is too tired to continue his work now anyways.

It is the ‘morning’ of the next day.

“Why is the workbench all the way over here?” asks Rhine, as they walk into the forge to start for today.

Hineni blinks, realizing. “Must’ve been a quake,” lies the man. The irony isn’t lost on him, given that he had told Rhine just yesterday that he should be honest. But…

“Huh…” says Rhine, looking around at the rest of the forge. “Weird.”

“Yeah, sure is,” says Hineni. “Don’t worry about that, we have a lot of work to do today,” he explains.

Rhine shrugs and nods. “What’s on the list?”

“Today, we’re making axes,” says Hineni. “They’re a big order on the list. Probably more than swords, actually,” he says, sparing a glance over towards the list, pinned up on the wall, where the workbench once stood.

“Probably because the war is in a forest,” suggests Rhine.

Hineni shrugs. “Makes sense to me. Come on, let’s light her up,” he says, nodding to forge.

Rhine gets to work, grabbing a shovel to start scooping charcoal. “How come it’s a her?” he asks.

“Because, Rhine,” says Hineni. “It just is.”

“Huh?”

“It’s like how sailors always call their ships a ‘she’,” explains Hineni. “The forge is the same thing.”

“Oh…” Rhine blinks, holding onto the shovel. “So… is the house a girl too?” Hineni thinks for a moment, not sure. “What about the city? Is it a boy or a girl?” Rhine lifts his head, staring up towards the top of the tower. “Honestly, it’s all really confusing. I don’t think it makes any sense.”

“Boy.”

“Charcoal, got it,” says Rhine, returning to his chores.

“Productive as always,” says a familiar voice, standing by the door. Sockel.

Hineni turns her way. “We’re using the ladder, if you like it or not, Sockel,” says Hineni.

“I’ll cut your throat in your sleep if I catch you,” she says. “Just buy a new one.”

Rhine turns over from the furnace. “That’s dark.”

“Boy.”

Rhine returns to his work. “Charcoal, got it!”

“Buying a new one is your job, Sockel,” says Hineni. “Besides, I think you’re taking this a little too seriously.”

She blinks, her ears twitching. The elf taps her head. “Are you dumb?” she asks. Hineni considers this pretty bold of her to do this early in the morning, especially when talking to her employer. “First of all, you told me not to buy a new one. At the start, I was just riding your ass because your wife paid me to do it,” she says. “But honestly, I kind of see it myself now too.”

Hineni lifts an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, Sockel?”

“Imagine you climb up that ancient ladder and it breaks?” she asks.

“Life is full of risks. It is what it is,” replies Hineni. “I’ll be fine.”

She crosses her arms, shaking her head. “You frog-brain.”

The shoveling of the charcoal stops. The forge goes quiet.

“You’re going too far, Sockel,” warns Hineni. “I accept a lot of snark, but you don’t need to overstep your bounds like this. What’s your problem?”

“It’s not about you, dummy,” says Sockel. “Or what do you think the rest of us are going to do if you fall to your death?” she asks. She lifts a hand, pointing over behind him. “I guess we’ll just send Rhine back to his folks and, oh, I don’t know. Maybe me and your wife can live in a tree somewhere?” she asks, rolling her eyes.

Hineni stares at her for a moment, considering what she just said.

It’s true, in a way. He supposes that he’s said himself that people are counting on him for a lot of things. People who are important to him. Maybe that means that he needs to not just offer up everything he can for their sake, but that he also needs to take care of his own health and safety, for their sake, if not his.

He sighs, looking at Rhine.

“Charcoal! Got it!” says Rhine, returning to his work.

He turns back to look at Sockel and tell her that she’s right, but by the time he returns his eyes to the door, she’s gone.