Hammer the Ogre-Mage Smith was having a rough time in life. He was an apprentice smith to a master Ogre-Mage Smith. He barely learned to infuse his power and blood into a dagger before some FRACKING FEATHERED ASSHOLE kidnapped him and forced him to mate with some angry troll lady. A few months later the Angel FRACKING flew off with his newborn daughter. The troll then beat him within an inch of his life and wandered off, leaving him for dead.

His innate blood magic allowed him to demand that his blood stays in his body, not a normal use of the magic, but he would not die until he held his daughter, no old customs, no angel, no angry troll was more important. So he opened up the family blood connection, pouring his blood’s power into following the feel of his blood across the wastes. Before leaving Hammer forged his chains into enchanted bands of metal that could go on a club or his fists to help him fight for his life.

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2 years of brutal Solo travel across the wastes and, he finally got close to the city, he followed the feeling around to just outside the poorest district of the slums. Then he felt her blood connection weaken as he watched the orphanage she must have lived in, watched it burn. He dropped to his knees screaming in despair, frustration, and confusion.

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Then he got drunk, VERY DRUNK. he got kicked out of the good bars to continue his binge in less reputable establishments until some guards were called to escort the drunk and now penniless ogre to a ditch. He took offense and may have punched out a guard or two trying to corral the drunk ogre.

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That led him to here and now a prisoner at the mercy of "arena justice". forced to bash in the brain of a nice lizard he had tamed in an earlier match.

The slave collar left his personality locked in the back of his mind. Not even really emotionally connected to most of what was going on. He knew he should be upset about killing his lizard buddy, but he just couldn't feel it.

He knew he would kill those little craftspeople and feel just as little in this last match, then he would either be put down like an animal or be a slave to this vile dwarf adventurer until he was killed being used as monster bait or something.

Without most of his feelings, he couldn't even decide which fate was worse.

During the prep period of his slave master's final match, he got an odd message that might hold a tiny sliver of hope.

Congratulations! You have been selected to alpha test a personalized adventuring tutorial.

Do you accept Yes / No

Hammer was shocked, he had lived with the system his entire life and never received a message like that, let alone at a time like this. Still, he didn't want to die, so he waited. Watched the adventures review the same offer and scoff, clearly dismissing the offer. All except Grimbeard, his master. Who must have accepted the tutorial, because he passed out.

That was the last straw for Hammer. If this tutorial could take his mind elsewhere he might fall wrong and damage the slave collar. Vain hopes were all he had left.

He accepted the tutorial and his body began to sag before the collar surged with power forcing his now unconscious body to stay guarding the passed out dwarf.

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He awoke in a mockery of his teacher's forge, everything was just a bit too small. Like the place had been built for a half-blood rather than the greatest living Ogre Bloodsmith. There was a mural of the great smith slaving over a forge, literally. He was shorter, had a slave collar and a ragged un-ogre-like beard.

Tiny fire elementals danced in the abandoned forge.

The tutorial informed him of how long he would have and it kept addressing him as if he were Grimbeard, then he realized that his status as Grimbeard's slave merged their personal dungeons, so while the forges and challenges in here would be a little too small for him, everything would be a bit too big for the dwarf adventurer.

He could advance his craft, level up, and stifle his “master's” growth all in one place.

He found the dwarf happily smithing a dagger for himself at another forge in the first area of the dungeon. Rather than start a fight he went further in, He found several glass cage-like lamps to capture the passive fire elementals,

He used one to capture the elementals from the closest forge, fed some coal into a feeder on the side. He then hid the rest of the lamps and monster feed, that he couldn't carry quickly and quietly.

He tossed the quenching water into the forge. While he waited for it to cool he memorized the instructions on the wall. Once cool, he smeared the ashy mix over the forging instructions on the wall.

He then repeated the act in every room on the first floor of the dungeon. A few rooms in, he found a charcoal pencil and lots of paper. He could write down the memorized lessons and record any new ones he found. He burned any paper he couldn't carry in his growing sacs of goodies.

He made sure the first floor of the training dungeon was quickly and thoroughly sabotaged. he didn't really want to stop the dwarf all together, just make him work to clean up each forge and learn much much slower. Prevent him from getting useful tools, prevent him from getting easy combat Xp. While hoarding enough advantages for himself.

About halfway through the second dungeon floor of endless forges, warehouses, and planning rooms, he stopped to work on his collected lessons. This floor had hostile fire elementals and earth elementals made of small piles of coal, he used fire-proof gloves to punch both types into oblivion. Then let his pet elementals into the now empty forge to feed on the enchanted coal from the "earth" elementals. They quickly brought the forge to life for Hammer and he smiled, he would be a better smith than any dwarf, nor would he stay this creature's slave for long.

A fire burned in Hammer's eyes as his blood began to boil. It was time to create.

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2 weeks before the end of the training period he left the shared dungeon to try the team training area.

At first, he was forced to fight the tiny people over and over, killing them many times. But they weren't just simulations, They learned that if he was freed, he would fight to help them survive. So their tactics shifted to free him faster and more successfully. They also messed up and blew his head off a few dozen times too. The methods of the mad goblin tinker barely worked… Most of the time.

Still, when the tutorial was up, he was ready to only really have a 60% chance of survival. It was much better than any of his previous Hope's.

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The match started and just like in the simulations the small crafters began with incredible teamwork, the heroes were distracted by the dwarf talking about the mysterious dungeon he spent so much time in, Hammer had caved in the area of the dungeon leading to the team fight portal before going in, so Hammer was confident he never got out of the personal dungeon. So he ignored the dwarf and watched one of the small crafters summon flint swords, stone clubs, and light stone breastplates from the earthen arena, providing previously crafted gear for their teammates, the ogre knew from practice that they were also equipping themselves as flashily as possible so that no one had the time or attention to stop the maddest of the crafters from summoning his little junkyard mecha.

“What the frack is that thing” screamed the dwarf pointing at the junk mecha as it stood to its full height, this caused the adventurers to finally noticed their opponents gearing up.

It was too late; as a volley of bendy leather improvised missiles was launched at Hammer’s head, several missed wildly, exploding all around him. One took a chunk out of his thigh, but 1 was on course. Hammer put all his willpower into resisting just enough to lift his head and stretch his neck causing the improvised explosive to hit him in the slave collar.

“Save Item” called the dwarf’s voice.

Hammer’s heart sank as the dwarf’s ability stopped the item from breaking and left it with 1 durability, which was still enough for keeping Hammer as a slave.

This was one of the worst outcomes in the simulations, there was no hope of him getting free now, his heart sank, he looked to the floor waiting for the command to kill.

Then he felt a pulse from his daughter’s blood bond, he looked up to see that she stood on the side of crafters, an open portal behind her, she stood talking to the strange woman and paladin supporting the crafter’s side, but her eyes were glued to him. She stood tall and proud for such a small ogress, her eyes were grey instead of the glimpse of brown he had seen the day she was born, her skin also had a paler complexion, but she was still his child, he knew it in his blood. His whole being vibrated under her gaze, his pulse sped up, the rushing blood deafening him to the dwarf’s commands. These were not feelings weak enough to be suppressed by a half-broken item.

She stepped up onto the railing surround the arena and rested one foot on the dome surrounding the combatants. Impossibly loud her voice echoed throughout the arena, and deep within Hammer’s mind and soul, everyone inside and outside the arena stopped and looked to the child with the commanding voice “I thought my birth parents abandoned me, then I found out I was created to be a weapon for a true monster, my adopted mother made that monster my eternal servant and I asked it about my birth parents, I found out that they were just people the creature forced together to create me.

Now my mother tells me that my birth father has fought and bled his way across the world to find me anyway, he might die a slave in some pit run by cruel sadistic monsters wearing the faces of men.

Monsters that claim to protect and serve the people of this land, but in reality kill people for fun and profit while the other children of the city and I were busy fighting monsters invading this city RIGHT NOW! the southernmost hex of this city just fell to a giant molerat swarm, we managed to evacuate most of the residents, safely, no thanks to the guards or adventurers whose job monster suppression is supposed to be.”

“So first I have a message for the leaders of the sewer tribes of that district.” she looked down at the crafters, “99 percent of your people have been evacuated safely, that last 1 percent represents people lost before my mother deployed the babysitters club to suppress the invasion, I’m sorry for your losses, but know that your friends and family are not fighting for their lives as you fight to get back to them.”

“To the adventurers of the city, you are not the heroes of the people, you are sadistic thugs and murderers and you should be ashamed that children are fighting monsters threatening the city while you’re here torturing the very people who should have been there leading their people to safety.” she spat a glob that sizzled on the protective dome “Pathetic Cowards All”

“Finally Father… are you really going to let some Cowardly man who has children do his fighting for him control you with such a flimsy trinket?”

Hammers eyes burned, he looked from his daughter to his master, he called upon the breath of the forge, and flames began to lick from the edges of his mouth his Molten blood and flaming breath doing some damage to his own body, but also softening the metal of the barely functioning slave collar, the dwarf was screaming commands and the collar tried to force him to comply but his resistance strained it’s powers further, enough for him to spit out a single command to a soul bound item.

“Chains of Vengeance MK3”

Blood red chains popped into existence halfway through wrapping themselves around his fists, quickly they finished wrapping then slowly shifted to make themselves more comfortable for his hands to form a chain covered fist. he still couldn’t punch his master, but he could bring the recently forged chains up to the collar. This was the last item he forged in the dungeon, something he could never muster sufficient will to summon while collared in the simulations.

He watched the dwarf’s eyes widen in horror as the chains went to work. Hammer couldn’t see his own neck, but the shape-shifting chains were designed to eat enslavement items as well as grant the ability to blood track a former slave master. They would get stronger the more powerful of items they ate and the stronger slave master blood they tasted.

He quickly felt the slave bond break and pulled his fists away in time to see the golden half-melted collar’s two halves being devoured by the horrific maws growing from inside each chain link, in moments the chains were maybe 5% larger and had golden sparkles across their surface as they settled back into their fist augmenting shape.

Through his chains, he could feel his ex-master in front of him. even as the panicking dwarf dropped a smoke bomb and started pulling newly crafted gear from a bag, he could track the little coward through the smoke like a shark sensing blood in the water. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and took 2 quick steps into the smoke before twisting his hips and putting all of his momentum and body weight behind a chain wrapped fist. He felt his prey get launched back rolling across the floor out of the cloud of smoke, he followed the dwarf out of the smoke, taking a moment to stomp the back of the mages leg, causing a fireball aimed at the mad goblin’s junk mecha to hit their teams tank in the back, his magic armor shielded the crafters from the blast while the flames destroyed the rouges bowstring and set him aflame.

Leaving the screaming mage to clutch his pulverized leg he saw his ex master activate a magic mirror creating 7 illusionary copies of himself, and making the real dwarf invisible.

Hammer acted like he was going for an illusion while he used his shoulder turned away from the dwarf to hide that he was uncoiling the chains from his hands and rejoining them into one long chain, before attacking the illusion, he turned spinning his whole body 180 degrees towards the real dwarf, he swung the chain out at dwarf neck height in the area he could still feel his master, the chain corrected itself midair at the last moment before wrapping around the dwarf’s neck, breaking his invisibility and causing the illusions the shatter.

The Choking dwarf fell to his knees, neck bleeding as the chains grew tiny spikes and blades, no blood dripped as the chains greedily drank every drop spilled.

Hammer was about the pull the chain tight and rip this man’s head from his body. When he looked up into his daughter’s proud and determined face. That’s not what he wanted to teach her, she was right that they were better than these so-called heroes. They were not the monsters here.

He commanded the chains to release the dwarf, the party of crafters was just finishing with the other heroes, the junk mecha stood with one foot pinning the tank’s armored chest to the ground, the laces of a giant shoe mimic had the mage and healer bound up and the crafter who pulled their weapons and armor from the earth just finished spraying enough earth and sand at the rouge to put out the flames and bury him up to his neck in magic earth.

Hammer looked down on the dwarf. “Today I’ll let you live, many adventurers wrong Ogres and Trolls just for existing, my daughter needs to see that we are better than your kind. However, the Chains of Vengeance have tasted your crimes and your life’s blood. If you enslave, chain or collar another sapient being without their consent; I will hunt you from the heights of the remaining heavenly planes to the depths of the darkest hell imagined by men, nowhere will you ever be safe from me if you ever do it again. Do you understand?”

The broken man could only nod as he wrapped a bandage around his own bloody neck, despite the gore he knew that the chains hadn’t hit an artery or anything vital, so his ex-master would live with his shame.

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He was filled in on what had happened over the next few days as he healed from his time in prison and the arena. He found out that it was his daughter’s new adopted mother who had saved her life when he felt her dying, the ordeal gave the girl incredible new powers, and a mind more brilliant than any child he had ever met of her age, let alone a child of Ogre heritage. This mother let the girl do what she wanted, but also provided her a team of secretive power armored soldiers to protect her from threats to her mind, body, or soul. Seriously, they were so good they got rid of a minor tracking curse Hammer had on him from the Zombie-Angel duchebag Azreal. A douchebag that Tiff had acting like her personal little butler now. She let him give the little fucker a solid punch, and now his chains had tasted 2 ex-masters, the aetherial Cherub-Imp thing not only made a connection with the chains that would tell him if the little shit ever got free and somehow hurt his little girl, But the chains were also, a lot more active and lifelike after the taste.

The mother, Professor Omega was happy to have Hammer in the girl’s life, but also made it clear that he would never get sole custody of the girl, he acted annoyed, but really he was just happy at how protective the woman was. Like really, she had no problem even if he took her away to raise her, so long as that was what the girl wanted and he was okay with Omega sending a squad to keep an eye on her in secret. He had no problems with the woman, heck she even rented him a forge and attached house in the city near where the girls burned husk of an orphanage was being turned into a free school for the local kids and his daughter.

The poorer folks of the city treated him incredibly well once word got around that Tiff was his daughter, she and her friends were quickly becoming folk heroes as the Omega woman’s PR team spread the tales of their heroic rescue of hundreds of people while her father fought for his life in their unjust justice system.

The Goblin Tinker was also quickly becoming a folk hero, apparently, he was an infamously crazy human scavenger who died and came back to life as a grem-gob, then demanded his scavenger status be not just re-invoked, but raised as he saw his new goblin-ish self as the perfect scavenger. The proving of his innocence in battle, while demonstrating his vastly improved skills was causing a rift among the scavengers as the poor, the small, and those who thought that Scavengers should be ranked based on skills and merit all sided with the mad goblin and formed a second scavengers guild called Tinker Town. This new guild was ordering parts from him like crazy, he took on 2 apprentices within the first week just to keep up with the orders of gears, sprockets, and large, thin, plates of metal he told them that he was still an apprentice himself but no one seemed to believe him and acted like he was being humble… who had ever heard of a humble ogre, some people just don't understand when they are being offensive.

Still, the apprentices gave him time to focus on his best piece yet, A suit of living platemail armor that would grow with his daughter, the Omega woman was providing any material he could think of, and several he had never heard of, like this Elixir of Destiny she provided a barrel of for quenching the metal. He had no idea what the grey glowing substance did, but his new Living item Creation skill agreed that it was the best substance to use for this job, so he just went along with it, in some cases she gave him options; like when she showed him samples of a hundred types of leather for the straps and underpadding, he chose the Aetheric Cherub Leather, partially yes because he guessed they had to harvest it from Azreal, but the little shit was immortal, so no permanent harm done. Hammer's new Skill also identified the leather as the best option for what he had in his mind, really the most mind blowing part was how much of the red dust the locals used as currency she gave him as crafting materials, he mixed gold and silver to make the electrum alloy mix his master taught him to use for creating mana channels in items, he could not melt the metal dust and forge with it, but he could mix it with the electrum to make the mana channels 10 to 50 times more efficient, the efficiency and mana storage capacity would grow into that 50 times efficiency modifier as the armour aged and grew with the girl. And the more mana it could store and channel through itself, the tougher to damage it would get.

He would protect her by making the little folk hero into the greatest warrior of her generation.