Author's notes:

Sorry for the late update, you can blame kerbal space program 1.02 for that...

I mean, I got to the Mun

Then, I had to visit Minmus

Fortunately, as I was building my Duna spaceship, I decided to take a break and write the chapter, thus, 3 days or so late. =P

------ Chapter 6: Steel, Sithril, and Blood ------

The following morning is quiet compared with the last, over one hundred people running around before the sun rose is something I had never experienced before. Calbin houses around a thousand men, women, and children. At least a quarter of them are preparing themselves for battle.

Half of the population are very young, around my own age. We are not expected to fight and I have seen a variety of jobs distributed to other children. Cooking, cleaning, firewood, hauling, and so on; I mostly busied myself at the temple so, I met very few children my age.

From what I learned from the Faelin priests, their acolytes are sent away to a monastery. Therefore, the only other children who pass through the temple are here to deliver supplies like food, water, and cloth.

During my breaks I can see the scale of people moving within Calbin, something the other priests tell me has not occurred before. Everyone able enough is mobilized for work with most being sent to the edge of the forest to cut trees for constructing fortifications.

By noon, activity slows down, the patrols are returning from securing a wider perimeter of forest. Thus, the loggers return which halts much of the construction. Many of these people spend the rest of the day inside where it is warm, some do crafts with leather, cloth, or wool.

The city’s atmosphere becomes relaxed and I can hardly feel the sense of an enclosing army of monsters. The moral is high as I overhear optimistic conversations that reinforcements will arrive and drive the goblins and koblins back into the mountains. With the recent victory against the goblins Calbin will have some room to breathe.

The smith Laro did not spend his afternoons resting. The furnaces are run all day, some of the work is intensive while other parts require waiting. I arrive at the Calbin forge to find that a new batch of ore is being smelt, therefore, Laro and his apprentices are a little more relaxed for now. Once the ore is cooked enough their work will become intense to not waste time and fuel.

“Looks like you’re done early today.” Laro said to me as I came close to the forge.

His sense of awareness around his forge makes it almost impossible to do something without his notice, even as he works.

“Yesterday was a good haul, we have enough gobite to keep us busy for a week,” he added.

“You are making sithril?” I ask.

“And whatever else we can extract from the ore, much of the gobite has copper with some traces of other metals. If we smelt the ore, we can work out the slag materials leaving the copper and sithril; however, that produces black gobite.”

Laro searched through some of his nearby boxes before pulling out a billet. It was a very dark colour, almost black with a goldish gloss.

“This billet is black gobite, about one quarter sithril. Its magical attributes are pretty weak and the metal is too soft to use over bronze or iron. My father’s generation was the last to make black gobite when we did not have enough tin to make bronze and knew nothing of iron smelting.”

He placed the billet on a table. Everyone around gave it a look.

“If someone is putting in the effort to increase the concentration of sithril, he might as well just make pure sithril. Then use the copper for making bronze. Black gobite is only used to decorate magic weapons and armour, its dark colour strikes contrast against silver and golds.”

I look towards the three furnaces, they are sealed up with clay and bricks that can be broken away to pull out the crucible inside. Each has a below which blows air inside, the charcoal is heated inside to bring the furnace to very high temperatures.

“Are you making just sithril?” I ask.

“We still need two furnaces producing steel, magic metal is only useful if we had more magicians. Steel is also something I have some skill with. I am lucky to have met my Dvaren teacher, they rarely teach much about steel.”

Laro turned and walked towards the furnaces.

“Why is that?”

“So no one else can make it.” He replies, “Dvaren have no home, they have only their skill. Their smiths only teach all they know to their one heir. Those why trade enough can may be taught a little, enough to work iron to be not as frail.”

Laro picked up a hammer and chisel, he approaches the first furnace to place the chisel between two bricks. His hammer strikes down to break the bricks apart, hot smoke rushes out among the dry clay.

“I was never taught exactly how good steel is made; however, I have learned from practice that heat is important. The Dvaren never taught me how to do this but I figured out a way to make alright steel.”

Laro’s assistant cleans away the debris from the furnace opening before he uses a wide pair of forceps to pull out a container, glowing yellow-orange. This is the crucible, I helped make a few of them to be filled with iron rich ore and sealed to heat in a pile of burning charcoal.

“There are a few other tricks I learned, all by watching the Dvaren smith use my small forge. One is to seal up the ore in a container with certain stone sand and ground charcoal. These ingredients are needed to make good steel and the crucible should be sealed to prevent too much charcoal from baking in.”

When the assistant lowered the crucible over an anvil, Laro smashed it apart with his hammer revealing a glowing hot core. He continued to strike the hot metal, holding it in place with a pair of forceps and turning it on its side when it flattens too much. Each strike breaks of hot chunks and sparks.

“Working the steel will break away the slag and firm the metal. I can tell here if the iron came out well or not by how it receives my strikes.”

Laro lifts the hot piece of steel with his forceps before he continues,

“We’ll make armour with this.” He places it back onto the anvil, three assistants move in.

One of the assistants brings a pair of forceps to hold the steel, the other two take turns striking it with their hammers. Laro moves to the next furnace, placing down his forceps and taking a chisel again.

“You are not making a sword?” I question.

“Few are really good with a sword here, armour will get more use. Everyone always wants me making mystical swords; however, I know too little about magics to waste my time on that. I would rather make twenty steel plates that protect the whole torso instead of one fancy blade.”

As Laro cracks the second furnace open, one of the assistants for this furnace moves in to extract the glowing hot crucible. Laro again, breaks the crucible open before he works the slag out to feel the steel’s quality.

While he does this, I peek over to the first furnace, the assistants there have placed the piece of steel back into the furnace opening to reheat it. They pull it back out glowing hot again to work.

“When the metal cools it becomes hard when worked. If you have not formed it into its shape you must reheat it. Repeat this again and again until you have what you want.” Laro says.

He is also addressing his other assistants; however, his tone changes when I show up. I can often hear Laro shouting at his assistants for their poor work, yet when I visit, he softens a little. When I first came he was not so soft; it was after I showed my talent with magic he opened up. It must be tied with his statement about using magic with the metal.

“Now, you take his place.” Laro looked at me while he gestured to one of the assistants who holds a hammer.

“Blidin, work on the sithril furnace.”

The assistant he pointed to, Blidin, handed over his hammer before moving towards the third furnace.

“Help him out.” Laro gestured to the assistant holding the steel with forceps.

Laro takes his place.

“Now, strike the steel!” He shouts.

The assistant strikes first, I follow by lifting the hammer and bringing it down hard. I am expecting a hard impact; however, the steel absorbs much of my strike and molds from the blow.

“Don’t loosen your grip Kordi!” Laro shouts.

My turn comes again, I prepare another strike as Laro shouts, “Cobin, more strength from your hips, match each other’s rhythm.”

I take notice of my form, without thinking about it, I was striking the steel in a similar form to striking with a sword. It is something I am familiar with. Cobin is using his shoulders and arms more while I am taking a stance as if I was in a spar with Arga.

Cobin looks over my following strike and mimics it himself. The sound from his strike changes to match my own.

“Good, Kordi, strike harder and match him.”

I feel a little disheartened that my strikes are soft even though I had good form. With the next strike I try timing my breath to match, the hit makes a louder sound and by now I begin noticing the steel is hardening.

After another few strikes Laro pulls the steel off the anvil and places it into the furnace. Cobin moves to the bellows to heat the charcoals inside. In a few minutes the steel is removed, glowing from the heat. Laro and Cobin return to the anvil and we continue.

Laro seems to know what he is doing; we are not flattening a piece like the other forge workers. Instead Laro works the piece into a bar, rotating it so we strike each side. When the metal cools and hardens enough, Laro brings it back into the furnace so, I ask.

“Are we making armour as well?”

“Helmets.” He replies.

With that he grabs a tool like an axe and places it on the bar’s center. Cobin hammers on the axe to split the hot bar in two.

“We will make two helmets with this, Cobin and Kordi, I want you working on a piece each. You can use the third anvil, we are not making anything with the sithril.”

Cobin grabs one half with a pair of forceps and carries it heat in the furnace. I bring my piece over as well.

“You run the bellows.” Cobin says to me.

I nod and move over to the bellow. It has a large leather sack with a wooden valve to only allow air in. When the wide wooden handle is pulled down the air inside rushes into the furnace. This feeds the fire and makes the furnace inside hot.

With each pull of the bellows a rush of heat surges out with flames and light. I can feel the sweat dripping from my face as I keep the bellow going. Then, when it is ready, Cobin pulls out both pieces and leaves one on an anvil while he moves to the other.

For now, he hammers down on the piece, flattening it. I follow his actions. We are actually very close in age, me may be a year older from his height but he has spent more time working here as an apprentice.

When our pieces become too cool, we return them to the furnace. Laro has finished extracting the smelted materials from the sithril furnace, the molten metal is cast into a rectangular ingot the length of my forearm.

The copper has not been properly smelted, thus, it is easy for the smiths to break away with the slag from the sithril. They now begin to place pieces of gobite looted from goblins into the crucible again. They do not break this crucible and instead only cover it and place it back in the furnace.

The melting point of silver and copper is low compared to iron so, they did not need to enclose the furnace as much. This allows them to feed more gobite in and melt down into sithril. Later they can separate the copper from the slag.

Because there is a minimum of one tenth sithril inside most gobite, the crucible needs to be very big to melt a small amount of sithril out. It is so large, that once full, it cannot be lifted, just leaned and poured. A trench runs along to divert the hot slag away, then the molten sithril can be poured into ingot casts.

There are quite a few children and adults who stand around to watch the hot slag knocked out, sending sparks around. By this time, Laro moves to the first furnace, the workers here have mostly shaped the steel plate. After inspecting it, Laro begins work on setting up that furnace for another batch of steel.

I can see him place the iron ore into a crucible with sandy powder from stone and charcoal. He seals it with moist clay and buries it inside the hot coals. The furnace is fed fresh charcoal before the entrance is sealed with bricks and clay.

The bellows will run into the night in order to cook the iron right.

My own work is progressing, I followed what Cobin has done. The anvils have a rounded end on one side, he uses this to strike the flattened steel to shape it. The result is pretty ugly, dents from my hammer strikes do not give it a smooth appearance like the helmets i have seen before.

Laro inspects my piece and comments,

“Too thick, you won’t have enough steel to finish the helmet. It is flexible enough that a thin skin will not break.”

As I hurry to go over the metal again I can feel the strain my body is under. The bellows require a different group of muscles to pull down on compared to the muscles I need to swing a hammer with.

By now the fatigue is catching up and the burning muscles in my arm and shoulder becomes numb. I keep swinging, swinging until I feel the hard feedback that tells me to reheat the steel.

“Good, we’ll take over.”

I turn to my right, the weight of the hammer pulling my shoulder down. Laro and the assistants from the first forge have finished preparing their work. Now they walk towards Cobin and myself.

Cobin places is hammer on the anvil and goes to find a water skin to drink. I pass my hammer to one of the adult assistants who approaches me.

“Nice work shaping it, we’ll work out the rest of the shape.” He says.

I did feel a little distressed that I could not finish my work; however, I wanted to watch how they complete it. I did not know how it could become something smooth and shiny like the steel equipment I know from Varrel and Esken.

They begin working in pairs, both hammering in turn while the lead of the pair holds and positions the rough helmet. Each strike now seems softer, they are not dinting it as much, instead they work on flattening the dints and spacing the metal evenly. Often going so far as to tap instead of strike.

While they work I cool off against the winter air and find a waterskin to drink from. I do worry that my sweat will make me too cold; however, if return into the furnace area I will warm back up.

When Laro and his assistance finish, I see that they place their helmets back into the furnace and run the bellows. Laro inspects the helmets as they rest in the flame. He also places in the body armour plate.

As I walk closer to look, Laro begins to explain,

“We need to heat the metal one last time. Once it is glowing right all around we can quench and temper the steel.”

I look around at the others, one assistant gestures towards a barrel of water nearby. I have always assumed it was there in case of fires but, as Laro finishes heating one of the helmets. He inspects it’s glow.

Then, with forceps, he carries it to the water and plunges it inside. Sizzling sounds erupt from the steam and bubbles in the barrel. After a few seconds, laro pulls it out, the helmet continues to let off a soft fog of steam.

He places it on a table to cool, then inspects the next helmet; rotating it to heat the right parts more. Then plunging it into the water.

“By doing this, the steel hardens. It is here when we find if we failed to make steel. If the metal cracks from the quench it is too poorly made to be called steel.”

Laro pulls the hot helmet out.

From their work on each helmet I can see a few details they added. Strips of steel were actually cut from the metal as they shaped it. Once removed, they place it over the helmet. Four strips run along the front to the back and the left side to the right side converging at the very top.

They hammered small holes in through the strips and helmet to line them up. Then placed small steel studs inside to bind them together. After heating the helmet again and hammering the studs the metals fused together.

“Do those strips do anything?” I ask.

“They provide strength along the helmet without adding more weight. Since we cut away parts for the face and eyes, we can reuse those to strengthen the dome.”

The helmet covers the skull and part of the neck from behind. The face is exposed, only the front strip that hangs down partially covers the nose. While I examined the cooling helmets Laro began shifting where the body armour rests in the hot coals. It is a wider piece that will take more work to spread around a consistent glow.

Once this also heated enough, Laro quenches the entire plate in the water barrel. I notice Laro looks over his shoulder as he places down the steaming plate.

“What do you need, knight?” He asks.

Approaching into the forge is the knight Varrel carrying a bundle of metallic pieces wrapped in leather over his shoulder.

“I’ve collected and looked over the quality of the gobite from a goblin warrior I slayed.” Varel replied, he spread out the leather and the metal inside it over the ground.

“The quality of this gobite is rich in magic, I hesitate to want it all melted into sithril since this rich gobite loses some of its attributes.” He added.

Laro walked closer to look at the pieces of goblin armour and a goblin warhammer.

“I understand, there are few magic smiths who can draw out this level of magic power from the gobite into sithril. I’d keep these to have one of the better city smiths melt it down.”

Laro picks up the gobite hammer.

“This especially, you could even use this as is. Though, the craft work is poor and it is unbalanced. A bad hit would crack it.”

Varrel notices me walking close to get a look.

“What are you doing here?”

I tense up at his direct question.

“He came to help work.” Laro replies.

“He’s a healer, one who is proving vital.”

Being called vital that way does not make me feel good.

“He’s also proven talented at magic smithing.”

Varrel pauses when he hears this from Laro. It probably is awkward that I, as a healer, am also trying to do things like sparing and smithing. The sparing has actually helped me understand some more about my body, healing muscles and bruises is not as difficult anymore.

The work at this forge may not directly help me with healing, but I will never learn what it will lead too if I do not experience it. I am curious.

“I want to know.” came from my mouth.

Laro and Varrel both turn towards me, my response is not worded well.

“I want to know more about this.” I gesture around, I still cannot clearly express what is on my mind. “I want to push what I know to learn more.”

I can tell from Varrel’s look that he has some doubts. He leans down and picks up a piece of gobite before passing it to me.

“Make a ring then. If it does better than a normal sithril ring you have promise.”

Saying that, Varrel walked away. Laro looked at me for a moment before he gestures towards the furnaces.

“You should be able to melt it down in a separate crucible in the same furnace as the other sithril.”

Before I do this I sit down and take a look at the gobite. I have never seen a good piece before and it has similar texture to stone. When I rub my finger over the surface it is rough and abrasive compared to metal.

Looking closely I make out visible bands of different material. The green colour is similar to the rust of copper while bands of black are visible between the luster of grey. As I look at the piece of gobite from different angles, the luster changes.

This suggests that the dull grey are crystal minerals. I find a piece of regular gobite that has been broken down to fit in a crucible easier. Comparing the two I can tell right away that regular gobite has noticeably defined separation between the different bands.

The broken pieces, naturally shatter along these points first. This quality piece of gobite has more even distribution which may also be artificially strengthened. It is more like metal and not carved stone as if the goblins lightly heat it before working it with a tool.

“How good is goblin metal work?” I decide to ask Laro.

He had just finished sealing up the second furnace with another batch of steel.

“They can make copper easy enough occasionally we find bronze. I’m not sure if they loot that bronze or if they find natural bronze. They don’t seem to understand metal alchemy, something that even us Mirts are still new to.”

Laro looked over piece I am holding.

“There is a lot of variety between gobite, some contains more sithril, some sithril is magically weaker, and some rare gobite contains dark red crystals.”

Laro begins sorting through the pile of gobite in boxes near by. He digs a piece out to show me.

“This one contains some white quartz, which may contain some weak magic power; however, quartz is weak to conduct mana. This one though,” He says as he spins the piece of gobite around, “has some small red crystals.”

I look close, the piece of gobite is about the size of Laro’s thumb and has a thick band of white quartz. Between the quartz and gobite I can see a few small specks of red crystal.

“If there is enough red crystal in the gobite, we call it red gobite. Crush it up and separate the crystals. When a skilled sithril smith works the red crystal powder into his sithril he makes a valuable red sithril. If you are not careful, the red crystals will melt and can be poisonous.”

“So, is that the same with a lot of the crystals in here?” I ask.

“That is right, there are heat sensitive crystals in gobite that work well with magic and cannot be transferred into sithril. They lose their power and form with the slag.”

I can understand the challenge more now. The smiths who work this have to be careful not to melt it, if they do not melt it they cannot separate the sithril. Gobite on its own is too frail and weighed down from impurities.

“We don’t use sithril as currency, selling it can be difficult when each batch has different properties. Techniques to produce consistent sithril are carefully guarded.”

“Like the Sithrin family?” I reply.

“Yes, to the north, the Sithrin family produces much of the sithril. To the south, there are some smith guilds and families who compete. We usually sell our raw gobite to them; however, I want to produce sithril to help fund the forge’s expansion. I need good iron from either Corrin or Condrica.”

“Is there no iron here?”

“Some iron lays here; however, the lower Kainran mountains have more silver and copper. Iron is rich in the mountains to the south on the other side of the Ordumar Valley’s mouth. North of Corrin lays a few iron rich mountains as well.”

I suppose for a smith he needs to know what metals are around to do his work. If copper and gobite are mostly around here, then a steel smith like Laro will be in an awkward position. There was never much mining back home in the Ferrel Valley.

In the Lower Ferrel Mountains I believe that the locals would dig up natural copper to make tools. However, their supply of tools was not greater than the supply merchants brought from the cities.

Laro moved on to inspect the work at the tables, the steel armour is being polished, burnt metal is rubbed away over whetstones to reveal the silverish colour of steel. My amateur hammering has already been worked out by the other workers and through the polishing I can hardly recognize the battered black work I shaped.

I will need to bring my attention to the gobite though. I want to understand the ore a little more. To do this, I find a large and rough file that is used to scrape large amounts of metal. It is a steel file with teeth like protrusions angled in one direction.

Sitting down with a bowl on my lap I begin work on filing the gobite piece into powder. Each scrap shearing off the layers, much of it breaks off in flakes. This appears to be part of the hammering work the goblins used. Instead of melting it down, they heat it enough before folding it and layering the ore.

By doing this, I also think the slag is worked out to create its uniform appearance. By the time I got to the last bit of gobite I crushed and ground down the flakes, refining it into powder. Then I pour in some water to swirl around.

When I experimented with potion brewing I often noticed different material that does not dissolve into water will settle down. What is more important is that the solids will settle differently. Heavier solids will rest at the bottom.

As I gently shake the bowl left to right the gobite powder settles, I hold the bowl at an angle to bring the powder close to the bowl’s lip. After extracting the water with magic I pour the powder gently along a table in a line while using a little earth manipulating magic to help it along.

The result is a line of powder that changes appearance as it goes. I can identify greys, greens, blacks, and a small band of white. The blackest powder is at the end of the line, I can assume this is related to sithril. The greenish powder to blackish powder is close to the kind of ratio of copper and sithril melted out from gobite.

In between the copper and silver are grey and white minerals that have a luster. While I have not perfectly divided the different materials I separate the different mineral and metal powder enough.

I make a new crucible that is very small and after looking around for a bit I was able to find a ring that would normally fit over a finger. For me the ring fits loose; however, my own finger is small compared to an adult.

With this simple copper ring I press it into the small crucible and while it is wet and soft the ring indents into the clay. Pulling it out will allow the melted silver to settle inside this. I place the wet crucible into the sithril furnace to cook.

While I wait I decide to examine the lustrous minerals. I do this by spreading them out inside a bowl and use my magic to manipulate them. From my experience with healing magic I can feel some feedback from body tissues. That sensation holds true with this powder.

Some of the powder feels very sticky to my mana while others do not. The dull feeling powder is separated from the clingy powder, I am going to work with the assumption that this is the magic material that is lost as slag.

The black powder is also noticeably affected by my mana, the green copper powder is not. Therefore, I will mix the black powder I think is sithril and the clingy mineral powder together. Looking over it, I might be able to melt it all into a ring. Or so I hope.

As a precaution I take a regular piece of broken gobite, file it down, separate the powder, and sort aside the black and clingy material.

The crucible finishes its cooking process. I pull it out with forceps, and while it is hot I pour in the mixture I prepared and covered it with a clay lid. After piling some fresh charcoal on it and helping the bellows I check under the lid.

The melted liquid inside glows and I am pleased to see there was enough to melt into the ring’s groove. I place the crucible into the snow to cool, it sizzles and steams from there as I prepare another crucible. I will use the normal gobite mixture I produced to see if there is a difference.

While I prepared the crucible, I push the copper ring in and when the crucible cooks I prepare more powder mixture to be close in amount as the other ring. I do notice that the gobite I used has different concentrations of mana clingy material. Some of it feels like it will produce a different effect.

This reminds me about the sithril bracelet I have, it felt different and has a different colour and gloss to it compared to the other sithril ones. I decide to avoid changing the amounts too much as a comparison point.

By the time the crucible is cooked I pour the regular powder mix in. I have not measured the actual difference between the gobite but I can tell this second ring will be more black powder than clingy grey.

The first ring should be cool by now so, I pull it out of its melted hole in the snow using forceps to carry it towards a table. Once there I crack open the crucible to remove the ring. It is still hot and soft but it is not glowing hot anymore. The ring is bent while I broke the crucible so, I use forceps to bend and twist it back to shape.

The sithril is easier to shape than steel even when cool which is a problem if the sithril is hit against something. Sithril will not bend back into its old form as well, it does not crack as easy as bronze at least.

When I check on the second sithril ring it is all melted and ready to cool. As I walk out from the forge’s roof the sky is almost black as the sun sets behind the mountains. It is late afternoon and during the summer the sun would still be up. However, the days are much shorter and will continue to become shorter while we enter the winter season.

Thinking about the time makes me hungry, I have been busy all noon so the fatigue from the day is building. The sithril needs to cool anyway. The first ring should be marked though, I inscribe the number one on it. I have little energy to do something fancy.

“We are heading out to eat and wash for the night, you can come.” Cobin says as he approaches.

“Good timing.” I reply.

“The night workers will continue with the bellows during the night and melt more gobite.”

Cobin does not say much else before he follows Laro and the other assistants. I pick up my robe before following them to a large building nearby the market. It is not as big as an inn and larger than the usual houses.

When I enter inside everyone makes themselves at home, taking their boots and coats off while they greet some of the women staying inside, their wives by the sound of it. The young workers do not have anyone to greet them and the ten of us wade our way through the door.

“We have a new guest?” a woman's voice asks.

I cannot see between all the larger adults who said this; however, Largo’s voice responds,

“The temple’s new healer, Kordi, came by the forge to help.”

“Oh,” the woman answers as she moves through the crowd, “I heard you healed an arrow wound from the Denir’s boy?”

“Umm, probably.” I reply with no clue who the Denir boy is.

“That boy tried to pass the whole thing off as if it was not a deep wound, he must have been reckless right?”

“Maybe?” I shrug.

Some of the wounds I delt with were pretty bad while others are just scratches.

“Leva, leave it for dinner, we’re washing up first.” Laro cuts in.

The crowd of workers moves their way to the back of the house where they step out again. Behind the building is a wooden floor and roof with open walls, water drains are placed along the floor. There is a metal rectangular tub of water along the building wide and long enough to fit a man inside.

The water inside is steaming and I can see brickwork around the base with a small furnace and bollow. As Laro checks the water the other workers begin stripping Laro turns to me and says.

“My father set this up when he built this place, too big for just one family so he rented rooms out. Now that the forges are expanded I’m making this a place for my apprentices.”

Laro places a polished stone into the water before he spoke in prayer.

“Aedlin, father of hot stone, we warm this water to bless our bodies.”

“Never prayed to Aedlin before Kordi?” one of the workers asks.

I shake my head, I have read the name before in a text mentioning different deities. Aedlin is not a god of medicine so, I have not sought out more knowledge.

“It is Aedlin who created the warm spring waters for our ancestors that traveled to these lands from the cold north. During the winters it is most appropriate to seek his blessings of warmth.” Laro adds.

Blidin comments, “Mirts who live near cold waters forget about Aedlin but they usually have some washing practice passed down.”

On that topic, Laro continues, “My grandfather was an Aedlin priest, he sought to teach the growing community of Calbin of Aedlin through heating water with fire. My father decided to make furnaces to melt metals to try and profit from melting gobite. Even if I have become a steel smith, I want to honour my ancestors.”

“This is like a small shrine then? Are there natural hot springs around Calbin?” I ask.

“None around Calbin, there are a few small springs in the southern Kainran mountains where adventurers have set up Aedlin shrines. They are simply a place to scoop warm water to wash the day’s sweat off.” Laro replies.

“Further north they heat stones to create steam, I’ve heard about it from the Mercenaries who worked up there.” Blidin adds.

The washing process involves the first assistant kneeling close to the tub while Laro stands to their side. He holds a wooden scoop and a cloth, the cloth is placed on their back under the neck before the warm water is poured onto the cloth.

Laro then scrubs their back while pouring more water. I did not notice at first but Laro also rubbed some tallow soap on the cloth to help clean the skin. When the back is clean, the worker themselves takes the cloth and washed their front.

When my turn came the tub is almost empty of water, the feeling of warm water poured onto my back is very comforting. The sweaty chill is washed away which is even better than when I try to wash my own back.

After I finished washing I quickly put my cloths back on to keep the warmth in, though the feeling of dirty clothes against clean skin bugs me. Not much I can do unless I have more sets of clothes.

Laro takes his turn last, before I leave I see Cobin stayed behind to wash Laro. I think the two of them are father and son, it is hard to tell when they work at the forge as Laro treats everyone strictly.

I am a little unsure about what to do now that I am inside, the others seemed to have wandered into different parts of the big house. It is still packed inside which is not uncommon in Calbin, most houses have one or two extra families inside.

Most of the noise is coming from a single part of the building, a warm light and the smell of food radiates from it. I take a look inside to find a long table standing knee height with silk and fur cushions laid around. The people at the table are placing plates of food around, cooked from rations mostly.

I can tell that a vide variety of food has been prepared even if they are mostly using rations. The smell of meat is similar to that of koblins but it has been prepared with enough herbs that the smell is not so bad.

“Please, have a seat.” One of the women tells me as she places down a large steaming bowl.

I take a seat along the length side of the table with my back to the entrance. The building inside is mostly made with sawn lumber, unlike logs the lumber planks give a lighter colour to the walls.

The table itself, on closer inspection, is simply six square tables lined up. The total length is long enough to fit around twenty people; however, as more people come to sit down that number rises to around thirty.

I find myself packed between two others, both forge apprentices. Laro and Cobin join us shortly as Laro sits at one end of the table, his wife and Cobin are sitting next to him along the table.

Following any conversation here is difficult with at least one conversation per table the room is filled with lively chatter. It only ends when Lato loudly claps his hands.

“Today ends another day at work, I also invited Kordi here to join us for dinner. He has helped at our forge the past few days so, it is about time we show him some good company.” Laro announced.

The looks in my direction end pretty quickly and everyone begins to grab the food spread along the table. Directly in front of me is a wooden plate with an assortment of pickled vegetables with a paste on top.

There is a bronze utensil that narrows into a two point fork on the plate, I use it to pierce a piece of pickled vegetable and scoop a small amount of the paste. The pickled vegetables from autumn have finished fermenting so, fresh vegetables are uncommon during the winter season.

The sourness of the pickled veggies go very well with the paste. It is a corro nut paste mixed with some other things, I can taste a strong flavour of some kind of radish root and herbs.

The worker next to me pierces the pickled vegetables with a pirce of koblin jerky before eating. I try it and the moist and sour pickled flavour helps with the strong and dry flavour of the jerky.

Empty bowls are placed at east seat to be filled with a stew of tubers, roots, and jerky. There are remains of crushed grains in the broth, probably used to add starch to thicken it. Before I sample more I hear someone speak my name.

“Have you become friends with Kordi yet?” Laro’s wife seemed to be questioning Cobin.

“No mother, we hardly even speak while at work.” Cobin replied while picking up a piece of chige leg.

I should try one of those, I thought as I search the table for more tasty food.

“I think Kordi could become quite the rival for Cobin, don’t you think?” The worker on my left says bumping me with his shoulder.

I almost dropped what looks like a fried chige wing. It is covered in a crispy coat of mashed starchy tuber that is fried in fat. The crunchy texture on the outside with the soft meat inside is wonderful.

“He just started making steel today, it will take years before he could catch up.” Cobin replies, a little annoyed.

“Maybe with steel, but Kordi was doing some weird stuff to that sithril, right?”

Laro nods, Blidin turns to me from across the table.

“What were you doing filing the gobite down, Kordi?”

The workers, particularly the ones who worked on melting sithril were keen to hear my response. I had to finish chewing my food, I am chewing some bread dipped into stew broth.

“I wanted to find out the proportions of different metals and minerals inside. Since gobite has different layers they are not that well bonded, I can grind them apart.”

I notice their looks are confused.

“Bonded? Like melted together?”

Well, I suppose bonded together means more than just melted together. However; I really do not know a good way to explain the kind of bonds that create things like rust. I just feel there is more to it.

“I broke apart the different layers, separated them, then melted together the parts that I felt would make sithril.” I reply.

“Sounds more like you are cooking to me.” Blidin comments.

“I did start out brewing potions and liquors.”

“Oh! You should brew some for us to try, you came from Ferrel right? I heard they are brewing some good grincer herb liquor there.”

“I helped develop that recipe.”

“Wha-! If only we wern’t bothered with a siege I’d ask you to make some!”

I have a hard time determining where the replies come from in the crowd so, I continue to give out replies.

“I started a few batches of Blood Leaf, Rain Weed, and Pinch potions brewed in liquor to preserve them from spoiling.”

“Well, I would like to try!”

“You’d probably need to get stabbed before they’d let you drink.”

“Haha!”

While the conversation began to carry onto other topics I began grabbing some more food. This conversation was distracting me from eating. I have some difficulty reaching for a bowl full of scrambled chige egg mixed with some onion like vegetable. This too, is tasty.

There were a few more questions thrown in my direction, Laro’s wife wanted to know if I can get some faelin. She was very cautious about asking, probably worried about getting in trouble with the temple. Since she did feed me some very good food today I gave her some of the dried faelin I keep stashed in my coat, it is a useful trading good.

Because it is getting late I did not stay for long after eating. I stopped by the forge along the way to the The Valley Pine Inn, it was bugging me that I left the second ring cooling in a crucible. So, I cracked it out before going to bed.

I wanted to test them out but the second ring was still too hot to wear.

Waking up and having breakfast at the inn reminded me about the food I had eaten last night. It was at a whole other level compared to rations the inn’s chef provided. Most of it was due to the chefs not using other ingredients like herbs and eggs.

When I came outside fresh snow had fallen overnight, it is a good thing I took out the crucible from the snow last night. I would hate to have a hard time digging it out of the snow. The furnace workers who stayed up all night had cleaned out the fresh snow around the forge area so, I head to the temple.

The morning is a little busier as groups of militia move about Calbin to prepare for their supporting patrols. It seems that the defensive tactics are changing more, with more militia the patrols do not increase in number as much. Instead, these militia groups seem to take turns being support for regular patrols or reserve forces.

The reserves are the ones who restlessly loiter about, waiting for the call to enter the woods. It does give the regular patrols time to rest and recover. For me, I arrive at the temple right about the time when the first wounded begin to arrive.

Arrow wounds continue to be the majority while the occasional stab wound comes. With more inexperienced militia being deployed comes more wounds, as they gain experience they should hopefully suffer less wounds. At least most survive long enough to reach the temple.

I am finding the hollip I brought to be running low, with about one third of it remaining even with us rationing its use. It is very useful for rubbing a little under the bandage to prevent any infection from developing around the wound.

I can substitute strong liquor for this; however, that should only be done when the wound is closed. The strong liquor will damage the natural healing so, I will only use it for closed wounds. Which are no longer needing a bandage.

As the temple priests and I work more people, we developed a good workflow which reduces waiting time. It is while an injury is waiting that the temple helpers clean and apply bandages. By assigning specific tasks to each of us healers we can turn over more patients to prevent as many from needing bandages.

The start of this involves Lara and myself, as the surgeon I heal the critical injuries right away to stop bleeding and seal up wounds. Lara supports me with her greater mana flow to stabilize the wounds and providing her greater experience as a healer to help me with what I do not know.

The patients are thens ent to Patyr and the other priests for a general treatment where they are essentially bathed in healing. This rapidly recovers their condition allowing the patients to walk away in full form.

If a wound is very critical, I combine my efforts with Patyr to do emergency healing where a lot of critical injuries can be healed in a short period of time. By getting the work done fast, we have opportunities to breathe and recover mana before the next. The process feels intense but is still sustainable for us throughout the morning and noon.

By noon’s end the patrols have returned to bring back what they collected and the lightly wounded came by for treatment. Varrel shows up with this group, not that he is injured, rather he came to find me.

“You finished here?” He asks.

I look over the place to see if there is something but everything should be in good order.

“Looks like I am.” I reply.

“Fine, lets go.”

Varrel’s tone is pretty neutral, he does not sound annoyed. Maybe he is bored?

When Varrel pushes the temple doors open my eyes are blinded by the sunlight reflected against the snow. Staying in a temple for half the day has made me forget how intense the sun can be.

I squint and follow the blurry shadow of Varrel to guide me until my eyes can adjust. I also have a good idea that we are heading to the forge, a route I routinely take. It is none the less difficult to traverse the route while half blind from sunlight.

The days usually have some cloud cover, so clear skies are a little different. Though, now that I think about it, the sun will set behind the Kainran mountains in a few hours. As we pass between some buildings we enter a shady spot and I can open my eyes more, while walking east the sun is not going to be shining against my face at least.

Sure enough, Varrel leads me to the forge, after yesterday he wants to see what I have done with the quality gobite he gave to me. Hopefully no one stole the rings, I just left them on a table after all.

Laro spots our approach, he was supervising some more steel being worked into armour. The chest piece from yesterday now has a back piece while the second ingot of steel is used to make two more helmets.

“You’ve returned.” Laro says to Varrel.

“Is the ring ready?” Varrel asks.

Laro looks towards me so, I reply, “I have finished the ring, it should be on this table over here.”

I walk towards the table to find both rings laying beside each other as I left them. The ring which I marked is the first ring which used a higher quality gobite, I pick it up and hand it to Varrel.

He removes a ring on his right hand which was worn over his leather glove. I cannot see the details of this ring; however, it had very good engravery and I even notice some glimmer of a small precious stone.

That does make me feel a little intimidated, he owns a very good ring already.

Varrel places the ring on his index finger, it fits well enough over the leather so, I am glad the ring size was not too small. I begin to feel the flow of mana rush from Varrel as he swishes his hand in tune with a faint chant.

Wind, bellows past my right ear, tearing the snow from the grass underneath. I look over my shoulder to follow the roar of wing bursting through the snow piled at the side of the forge. This wave of snow pushed by wind crashes into the edge of the woods, knocking down the fresh snow atop the branches.

The roaring wind calms down and fades to the sound of broken branches cracking down as the blown snow ripples back down.

Honestly, I have never seen strong magic used before, just some used as tricks or for chores. However, that roaring blast is on another level that leaves a ringing in my right ear and a wake of cleared snow to the edge of Calbin.

A few people in the area even take a peek, chattering between each other about a possible attack. Even the face of Laro and the forge workers is surprised.

“That was… wind magic?” Laro begins to comment, “Could knock the wall of a barn down with it.”

Varrel inspects the ring on his finger before saying, “It is well balanced sithril, low in impurities, sensitive to magic, and amplifies it well.”

He begins to take the ring off and place his old ring on.

“Do you only use one?” I ask.

Varrel looks at me, something goes through his mind and he decides to respond, “Some mages can cast complex spells that require different stages of activation. In their case, they will want different tools to improve each stage; then, they will need different rings, bracelets, staffs, and other accessories.”

This information is new to me, I have known that there exist complex spells; however, the information about them is pretty limited. Closely guarded I assume.

“I manage well enough with simple spells that emphasise power. Your ring, is better sithril than the one I currently use. When I return to Corrin I will have it engraved and embedded with a magic stone.”

Laro looks to Varrel before saying, “Then what about the rest of the gobite?”

“If he has the time he can smelt it all into a similar quality sithril. I will pay the market price it would be worth in Corrin for high quality sithril.” Varrel replied to Laro.

“Do you just want an ingot?” I ask, since that would probably be the easiest to transport.

“Hmm.” Varrel contemplated, something came to his mind and he replies, “A hammer, wielded with one hand.”

With that, Varrel began to walk away, back to the manor most likely. I turn to grab the second ring. I was interested in testing the difference between the two rings but, I will just have to settle on what I have learned so far.

Varrel’s gobite pile is still wrapped up near the gobite pile, before I do anything with it I decide to ask Laro if he is alright with me trying a few more things with making sithril.

“Yea, sure, pick whatever you want out of the pile.” Is his response.

I feel pretty motivated to try a few things with the mixture of materials inside gobite when making sithril. After all, I want to treat this similarly to brewing potions.

Before I can really start, I have to file down a lot of gobite which will take some effort.

It also takes some strong skin as well, I begin by quickly filing down my first piece and even as I finish that piece my hands feel sore. If I continue with bare hands I will get blisters, the thick skinned parts of my hands from wood cutting and sword training are in different places compared to where I need to hold and file.

The pieces of gobite themselves are also sharpe where they are cracked; therefore, I decide to wrap my hand left in leather like a bandage. My right hand that files is pretty fine on its own. The muscles in my right arm feel otherwise as a burning sensation fills those muscles and sweat even forms on my brow.

After six fist sized pieces of gobite I decide to finish there. The next step involves grinding down the shards into finer powder. I have to do this in small batches as well, pouring some of the shards into a mortar to grind down.

Next comes separating the different parts of gobite, swishing the bowel around with water. I can easily identify which parts I want to use and separate them into different bowls. Once this is finally done I can get to where I wanted to experiment.

There are two parts of the gobite in particular which result in sithril, the black powder and the mana clingy minerals. I produced a sizeable amount of all of these parts; however, what I want to experiment with will need a little more of the mana clingy minerals. I will get more of that from the sithril slag.

Along the trench near the sithril furnace, the slag from sithril production ends up being scooped and piled nearby. The pile is mostly buried in snow but I can pick a few fresh pieces off the top.

By filing this down I can find some of the lost gobite magic minerals, which I plan to add to some of my planned variations. There is some interesting diversity among the mana clingy minerals I gather. Most is a lustrous grey; however, there are a lot of white crystals mixed in.

These crystals are very small, mostly because I crushed them down, other crystals include some of the red ones. However, I have found out that the large crystals are either removed by the goblins or the people who loot the gobite for themselves.

The only crystals remain are too small to be bothered with. It does seem like these crystals do not stick to the sithril when smelted, they are lost in the slag. I confirm this as I sort out the slag powder and find a very high ratio of crystals to the mana minerals.

With all of this sorted out, I find a metal spoon that is laying around with a pile of various utensils waiting repair. I will use it to measure out the material into around six different crucibles. They will not make rings; but a thin rectangle like a billet in size. These thin crucibles will be easy to fit into the furnace.

The first one will have a low ratio of minerals inside; thus when I scoop six spoons in and the first is a ratio of one spoon mineral and five sithril, the next will be two to four, then three to three, followed by four to two, then five to one. The sixth crucible will only use the black sithril powder.

The normal distribution I find in gobite is about two to four mineral parts to black powder. I want to isolate only the black powder because if it has no magic power, then it could just be silver and the magic power comes from the minerals.

The mineral powder does respond to my mana but not the same way as sithril, thus, I have a feeling that the two combined makes sithril have its effect. That effect is different from normal gobite. The inclusion of the white and red crystals could also have unknown effects as well.

After placing the crucibles inside the sithril furnace I dug out the gobite hammer inside Varrel’s stash. It is a long hammer, designed for two hands that stands around a meter in height. Which makes it close to my own height. The hammer’s shaft is very strong and the head of the hammer is made from the same piece of ore.

By inspecting the effort made into working this gobite hammer I can tell that more work has gone into producing this than the armour pieces. The hammer’s effect on my own mana is very interesting, I first try using it against a log.

My mana flows through the hammer and impacts into the log; splinters breaks off along with the log’s bark as if the whole log was trying to rattle itself apart in that moment. I do recall that armour is said to amplify this effect.

So, I place a piece of old bronze over another log before striking it with the hammer. The moment of contact is followed by a flurry of log splitters bursting away from the log which collapses under the weight of my strike.

As the shock began to fade I can hear laughing behind me, the forge apprentices had seen my test.

“First time seeing a gobite weapon Kordi?” one of them shouts.

Laro comes closer before saying, “Darn shame Varrel wants it melted down, I’m guessing he is expecting to make something better out of it. You sure you are going to file the whole thing down?”

I dig the head of the hammer from the limp husk of the log and reply, “I will start with the armour first, my tests should be done so I can find a good mixture to make.”

Laro waves over at one of the workshop workers, “I’ll get you someone to help file these down.”

That is very nice of him, it will prevent me from taking a few days to grind it all down. Much of the daylight is gone as the sun is setting so, the two of us can get to work on grinding down the armour pieces today.

I explain the extent of what I need the helper for before we begin. He is a young boy close to my age and maybe slightly older since he is taller.

“Why’re we scrapin’em down?” he slurs.

I have not heard that strong of an accent, I have a feeling it is more related to being lazy and mumbling.

“It is easier to separate the different parts this way.” I answer.

“T’othas jus’ melt’im.” he continues to mumble.

“Well, I’m trying something different, I just need your help for these pieces of armour.”

The boy did not seem to thrilled, but I have not seen him very enthusiastic during my time here. I would rather not dig into it incase something bad had happened to him. He could just be lazy.

Optimistically, the boy did help file down the gobite pieces without much protest. Just the occasional complaint about being sore and tired. In comparison, I produced about one third more gobite slivers from filing. We fill up quite a few bowls, much more than I usually work with.

Our pace continues after the sun sets and the stars and moon become bright. Fortunately we also finish filling the armour pieces soon after. I take this time to remove the test crucibles from the furnace while the helper boy heads home.

I double check to make sure each crucible is properly marked before I set them aside to cool overnight. I pour the fileing slivers into a leather bag for the night as well. The last thing I do here is grab the second sithril ring I made. It is unmarked but I recall it has slightly higher than normal mana mineral to sithril proportions.

I fit it on my index finger, its size makes it a very loose fit. With my mana I decide to focus through the bracelet on my right wrist and through the ring to activate wind magic. The blast of air that burst out is an improvement, though my mana flow is nowhere near as impressive as Varrel’s flow.

As another test, I do the same spell with just the bracelet. The effect is slightly weaker. So, I remove the bracelet and use just the ring. Its effect is the same as my first attempt. This tells me that if I pass my mana through multiple sithril objects, the amplified effect is only equal to the best item, there is no combined amplification.

Unless I do some sort of staging like Varrel mentioned. However, I have no idea how that works. I do know that the bracelet has a better effect on my mana focus, so I try a similar exercise with the ring and compare its effect to my bracelet.

The result is interesting, the bracelet wins for mana focus enhancement. This could be from the type of mix in the sythril. My sithril ring is a lighter colour, not as grey as the bracelet, that grey could come from more minerals while the ring has more crystals ground into it.

This is something I can confirm later with my test rings, they have different concentrations of mana minerals after all.

BWArrrOOOOOOMMMMM!

The sound of a horn vibrates through the air from one of the perimeter towers, an alert for koblin sightings nearby. Since there may be a need for me, the first thing I should do is head to the temple. Laro has taken action to rally his workers, he notices me as I begin to pack up.

“Go to the temple Kordi, it is safer there.”

“I will.”

I am not going to the temple for safety, I think the biggest danger of being outside would be stray arrows and as long as I don’t get hit in a vital area I should be fine.

Either way, I pack up and run to the temple, the horns sound three more times as I run. From their directions I can guess that there are multiple sightings around us. The clear sky allows the night stars and moonlight to come through clear enough that it could be hard to tell it was really nighttime.

Everything is grey with the occasional torch or the warm light from a window. I have no problem navigating my way to the temple, I would even say that walking in the bright day was harder.

The guards, militia, and other defenders have begun to clamour about.

“Attack!” some shout as they run in different directions.

I have no idea what is going on but my heart races and I even feel excitement. I turn a corner to find the temple doors and before I approach I hear from behind a voice.

“Help! Healer, you’re a healer right?”

I turn to find a young militia man running towards me, his anxiety is shown all over his face.

“The west gate! Someone is hurt, an arrow wound! Please, help them. I need to find some, uh, reinforcements!” he hurriedly announces before running past me.

I do not want to linger on where he is running too, my first concern is the arrow wound. If it is really bad they could die. The thought of someone bleeding out before I can do anything pains me so, I run west along the road away from the temple. Along the north side of the Calbin hill lies the west gate he must be refering too.

There is no clear sign of conflict, I think someone was hit by a surprise shot by a koblin before it retreated into the woods. I continue down the west road with the palisade to my left along the north slope, the grey light illuminating the dark frozen mud road between piles of white snow shoveled to the sides.

As I run into sight of the gate I begin to question who is here, the clamour within calbin has faded behind me and an eerie sense of quiet looms close to the gate. I slow my pace as I come around a bush to find the remains of three dead defenders along the raised platform above the gate, multiple arrows hanging from each of their lifeless bodies. At the base of the stairs I see an unarmoured corpse of something I do not know.

Then, I hear the sound of snarling and heavy breathing. A wrestling fight between the remaining defender, pinned down by the dark silhouette of a creature. Its two arms trying to force down a dagger into the man’s chest. The man, with all his effort, tries to hold it back.

I quickly step forward, one foot after the other. A numbing sensation comes over me, I have to kill this creature. It is covered in roughly patched together furs, its greasy hair grows along its neck and even along its arms. It fits the profile of a koblin from what I have learned.

The koblin does not notice me rapidly approach, the frozen mud does not break under my light weight and its full attention is on killing this man it has pinned. Within a few more steps and I can kill it. How though?

My thoughts settled on what I have done many times before, its body will be made up of water, I can boil its blood. I do not have to feel bad about it if I do it to a koblin right? I run the plan through my head as I reach my arms forward, I am steps away.

The koblin’s ear twitches as it notices my presence. As it turns about to face me, it realizes it is too late and raises its right arm to shield itself. With my right hand I grab the koblin’s raised arm, my left reaches around to hold its left shoulder from behind, the kind of hold Arga had somewhat explained.

The koblin jumps back in reaction, my small body cannot hold it down; however, I have enough time to do my magic. Flow my mana inside its body and boil his blood!

The koblin twists and snarls, but it is not in pain.

I try again, it should work. I focus on heating the blood. Come on!

My face is struck by the koblin’s elbow and I let go by reflex to jump back.

The koblin is free from my hold, staring me down with its fangs in full view.

My magic did not work!

The feeling of my guts twisting up in a knot drains out all of the courage I have and I step back to run. From our struggle the koblin is now between Calbin and I. Knowing this, the koblin leans forward to charge, I pivot and run to the hill. Jumping over a snow covered shrub I roll onto a path leading up the hill.

With hand and feet I desperately pull myself up to run up the path. The koblin in pursuit, the snarls have become howls, shrieking from behind.

I can’t think anymore as if I need all of my concentration for running. In terror I feel as if the koblin is moments from catching me, it is bigger than me and has to be faster too. All I can do is zig and zag up the side of a steep snow covered hill, exerting all of my energy to reach the top.

Then what? I do not want to think of what is next if it means i slow down. Do not stop.

Just like that training I did earlier, you stop you die, I will repeat that to myself if I need to.

You stop you die Kordi!

The feeling of something strike against my right shoulder makes me jump. A stone has grazed me and lands into the snow. I turn to look, behind me, at least five paces down the hill, the koblin glares at me. The fog of its breath surges out in rapid succession as it pulls itself up the hill on all four arms and legs.

You got tired?

As the thought crosses my mind I feel a burning inside, I am tired as well but I can feel a small chance emerge. I know now that I cannot kill it; however, there is something I can do.

I turn to face the koblin, it rears itself up in anticipation and the resemblance of a twisted grin emerges. I lean and run forwards, picking up momentum for two paces. Then I jump, pulling my legs in close.

While my body falls, I look down my knees as the koblin lines up between them. The koblin’s face begins to distort, from a look of excitement it begins to feel dread. I release my legs focusing my mana to power my legs to kick.

The impact collides with the koblin’s chest, knocking it back where the steel slope will not catch its fall.

A shrieking sound falls into the distance as I fall into the snow, shortly after the dull thump of the koblin’s body makes contact with the ground. I hear the sound of its body being tossed and rolled as bones land in awkward ways and branches break under its weight.

When it ends, only the faint moan calls out from below. I dig myself out of the snow and look down, a group of figured runs along the road toward the gate. They stumble across the koblin caught in a bush, in a short panic two of the figures strike with their spears and the koblin makes one last wail.

One of the people down there finds the wounded man and lifts him to bring back to the temple. Without much reason to be up here I make my way back down the hill. When I emerge from the bushes some of the people at the gate became startled and drew their bows, fortunately they realize quickly what I wore.

I did not feel worried at this anyway and walked back towards Calbin. The numb feeling slowly drains away and the cold air tickles my face, snow in packed away around my neck, melting down my back.

While shaking it off a feeling of tension comes over me, my legs weaken and I sit on the nearby snow bank. I really do not know what to think right now and I just stare at the frozen mud imprinted by hundreds of footprints.

“What are you doing here?” a void calls out.

From Calbin a figure in steel armour approaches, his black hair blends with the dark night sky.

“Hey, are you going to answer?”

It is Varrel, I would rather it be Arga honestly. I would rather not be scolded by Varrel right now. I turn my face away, the frozen mud seems more interesting right now.

“Alright.” Varrel responds, breathing out, “What happened up there?”

That same twisting gut feeling begins to surface itself again, resonating through my body. I do not know what happened. I tried doing what I always do, just to the koblin and it did not work. That is both frustrating and terrifying.

“I almost died.” I mumble, “My magic didn’t work.”

“Huh?” Varrel gives an air of annoyance.

“I tried to boil its blood. I grabbed it and tried to get the water in it to boil, like I always do.” I repeat myself louder.

Varrel pauses for a moment to think before he crouches down.

“I see, I doubt anyone in that village knew enough about magic to teach you.”

I turn to look at Varrel, from his position he is looking at me from the same level.

“When you activate mana inside a body, there are only a few forms it can take, our bodies naturally resist mana doing hard like that. You can try it on yourself if you want, won’t work. You wouldn’t get it as a healer since healing magic is one of the few forms that can activate inside a body. The other two are curse and death magic.”

Varrel stands himself up before continuing.

“Books on those kinds of magic are restricted so, they are not talked about much. Either way, most mages would think you’re an idiot for trying it, but you are self taught after all. Bound to be a few things you don’t learn on your own.”

What Varrel said to me sticks in my mind. I had never actually tried it before, the thought was very grim and even trying it on myself was possibly very dangerous. I became so accustomed to using mana inside people that I assumed it would work with other magic.

However, what Varrel says does make some sense. There is no mention of magic being activated inside of bodies except healing magic because they either cannot and it is commonly accepted. Or, the kind of magic is forbidden and information is heavily restricted.

“Well, I’m going to take you to the manor for the night, can’t have you wandering around when koblin raiders are prowling around.” Varrel says as he holds my shoulder and raises me to my feet.

I follow along, without the adrenaline I feel weak and tired.

Author's end notes:

This chapter covers quite a bit, I had to brush up on my metallurgy while writing it too.

It is 12505 words and I have not spent as much time proof reading it since it is a few days behind what I planned, therefore, there are likely rough patches within.

I also get to finally explain one of the big limiting rules for this world's magic, think about it like an evolutionary adaptation against harmful magic. That is why people have to activate it outside then "throw it" instead of activating it inside. Curse and death magic find ways to bypass that immunity while healing and "buffing" magic are naturally accepted as being symbiotic.

I wanted to introduce it earlier but decided to hold it back for this encounter.