Chapter 9

April 3, 1600 hours.

Carl hammered on a sword blank, his forges still worked so things could be worse. As he fell into a rhythm he reflected on the change. He had been working late on a decorative piece for a gate. Next thing he knew mist had flooded into his workroom, it seemed to dance around his forges before part of it seemed to flow into him. He awoke the following morning, a 5’4” Iron Dwarf with a new last name. Placing the blank back into the furnace, he brought out his last project, a warhammer. The warhammer was three feet long, the head was in the shape of a closed fist holding a large spike. The flat head of the spike formed the front of the warhammer and the spike coming out the back was for punching through armor. The haft was made out of part a leaf spring sandwiched between two lengths of ash. It was heavy, but he could deal with the weight. Taking a file to clean up a few minor imperfections he glanced at the armor and weapons he had forged in the last two days.

When he awoke he recalled armor and weapon crafting techniques he had learned at his father’s forge, thing is his father was high school english teacher not a blacksmith. He had walked into his workroom almost in a trance, firing up his forge and going to work on the suit of armor. It would be considered plate mail, a mix of plate armor and chainmail. The chainmail was actual part of the arming jacket, think of a heavy jumpsuit with chainmail on the inside of the arms, legs, and basically anywhere not covered in plate. It also had buckles to attach the plate to, overall it was a good tradeoff in flexibility, weight, and protection. The helm was bit fanciful with all the celtic knotwork, it had the the classic viking eye and nose protection with cheek guards and chainmail covering the neck. He had constructed the whole suit in six hours, should have been impossible, but the shortcuts from the system made it very possible. He then went on to make a steel headed maul, several axes, warhammers, and swords.

Setting the warhammer down he pulled the sword blank from the forge and resumed hammering. Quickly the blade took shape and an hour later he attached the hilt to his final blade, a roman gladius. He then took a fine file to give the the final edge and the blue screen opened.

Congratulations you have created a high steel gladius!

Your Bladesmith III has improved to Bladesmith IV.

Stamina Loss -25

Placing the gladius next to the other weapons he forged he called up his status screen.

Carl Forgekin

Race: Iron Dwarf Sex: Male Age: 50 Height: 5'4" Weight: 270 Hair: Grey Eyes: Silver.

Class: Guardian Profession: Forge Brother

Strength: 11 Constitution: 13(16) Dexterity: 12 (13) Agility: 10 (9)

Intelligence: 14 Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 10 (8 for Non-Dwarves)

Languages: Common, Dwarven.

Skills: Mining I, First Aide II

Class Skill: Taunt I, Warhammer II, Shield I

Profession Skills: Blacksmithing V, Armorsmith IV, Weaponsmith IV (Blade Specialization).

Abilities: Night Vision (low light), Direction Sense

Bonuses: Forgeborn (Smithing skills grow 50% faster).

Titles: Forgeborn (Born next to a forge with a hammer in his hand).

Life: 155 Mana: 100 Stamina: 160 (137)

Life Recovery: 1.6 min Mana Recovery: 1.2 min Stamina Recovery: 1.6 min

Experience: 200 Level: 3

Carl was staring into his near empty metal bin when he heard a knock on his door. Grabbing the maul he walked toward the door, this would be the eighth or ninth time someone had come to his door since the Change. Five of those ended in fights, and the others in trade offers. Thankfully the concrete walls and steel bars on his windows kept him from being attacked in his sleep. Looking through his spy hole he saw a young woman standing in front of his door, she was with an odd collection of others including a very well equipped dwarf and a winged woman. Looking at the young women he stared at her, trying to place the face. The woman called out, “Carl its Liz!, you there?”. Carl was surprised as the face and the name clicked in his head, Elizabeth Hurley, the young paraplegic from Oakhurst. He had done some custom metal work for her wheelchair and they had become friends keeping in touch via email. Seeing she was well armed and not a possible hostage he quickly opened the door.

Liz was getting nervous waiting, they had ran into two more trolls on the way to Carl’s home/workshop. They took them both down easy enough pushing everyone but Arnold to level 4, after the third troll Arnold decided to join the party. Personally she thought Arnold was more eager to get in on the experience than anything else, but whatever the reason a healer in the party was a good thing. She tried calling out to Carl and it seemed to work as the door opened, and a dwarf with Carls face stepped out taking her into his arms.

He quickly let go and held out at arms length, “Damn girl It’s good to see you standing on your own. Who are your friends?”

Liz smiled introduced him to everyone before ending with Joe, “Last is Joe. He, Sarah, and Rachel helped me out of a bad situation. I asked them to come by here hoping I could talk you into joining us? Were headed up to Iron Mountain, planning on setting up a place to call home in the mountain.”

Carl let go Liz and looked over to Joe. “How do you plan on making it work? From what I can tell all dwarfs start with mining, but even with two of us it will take time to do any serious tunneling.”

Joe grinned, “Dwarven Engineer with Stone Shaping and Runecrafting. Ah have a feeling Ah can tunnel pretty damn fast.”

Carl looked at Joe oddly, “Scottish?”

Joe sighed, “Nae, Ah thought it was because Ah was a dwarf, but you’re the second dwarf Ah have met, and Ah am the only one that seems tae have the problem. Another effect of the First perhaps, But nae weel tak' it.” Joe grinned, ending the sentence in a much heavier accent.

Carl raised an eyebrow, “First?”

Joe nodded, “Ah was ground zero of whatever the hell happened. Before we get into any of that can we come in? Ah don’t like standing out in the open like this.”

Carl nodded, “Sure, Liz was a friend and your group seems alright. Take the wagons around the side of the house. There is a loading ramp I use for bringing in coal and other materials. I’ll meet you there.”

After moving everything inside they all got together in the workshop and began trading stories about the last few days. The dogs all chose a lap to lay their heads on in the hope of getting pets. Joe glanced up at the roof, “Ye got lucky being this far out, my house looks like swiss cheese. The effect lessoned the farther from my house we got, in fact beyond my garage the other homes seemed fine. The electronics, modern firearms, cars and such were all either destroyed or damaged. But ah did get the First title out of it, which gave me +5 to all stats, an accent, and a few other odds and ends.”

Carl exclaimed, “Damn +5 to all stats kicks ass, I got something called Forgeborn. It give me nice bonuses to smithing. Speaking of smithing would you like me to look at those ah wheels of yours, I can probably do something better than 25 pound free weights.”

Joe said, “Sure, long as you’re willing tah put us up for the night. Not comfortable being in town but considering your walls appear to be made out of 12 inches of concrete Ah think we’ll be safe enough here.”

Carl glanced at the walls, “Reinforced concrete, I was going through a prepper stage when I moved up here and had this place built. Which reminds me if any of you want to take showers I have an above ground water tank that is fed from a windmill powered pump. The house is on a gravity feed system so I still have water.”

Sarah jumped up and yelled “Dib’s! Wait how big is your shower?”

Carl studied her for a minute, “You and Rachel may want to use the shower through those double doors, I use it for some of my metal work, but it’s still a shower. Liz you and Donna can use the bathroom shower, It’s through the kitchen on the left.”

The women quickly got out of their armor, grabbed some bags from the wagons and split up heading towards their respective showers leaving Arnold, Carl, Joe and the dogs by themselves. Joe said, “Well Ah think am last, but that works for me. Ah am more used to going without regular baths then the others. But I think Ah can take this armor off at least, this place seems safe enough.” Joe stood up and proceeded to strip off the armor soon he was standing in a pair of grey sweats and a t-shirt. “Damn that feels good.”

Carl was staring at the chainmail, “Joe how did you make this? The rings look solid.”

Joe looked at the hauberk, “It was part of my First rewards, Ah had the armor for years. The rings used tah be just twisted together, it was the first piece of armor Ah made out of 14 gauge galvanized wire.”

Arnold spoke up, “Is there any chance I can get some armor Carl, I know I’m a healer but I would feel better about it and I can pay for it.”

Carl stared at Arnold, “I think I can throw something together for you. Those 25 pound free weights you’re using as wheels will help.” Glancing at his walls he knew he had some prototype wheels from tricking out Liz’s wheelchair, plus the odd art piece that never sold. Carl had played his share of rpg’s both on the computer and with friends in High school. One thing was always the same, protect the healer and if he was going with them then Arnold would be his healer. “Yes I can put something together for you. Joe could you and Arnold get me those, ahem.“ Smirking he continued, “Wheels and I will get the forge prepped, no time like the present”

Joe and Arnold watched as the 25 pound weight started to glow in the gas furnace. Joe was surprised the gas furnace worked, the knowledge he received from his blacksmithing skill didn’t cover gas furnaces. Taking the iron out of the forge Carl set the hot iron into a bed of coals. Turning off the gas he used a pair of tongs to set the weight on an anvil. With a few blows of the wedge side of his hammer he cut the glowing weight into two pieces. Placing half of the weight onto the coals, in a second older style forge, he began to work the other half. Every blow seemed to change the shape of the iron and in an amazing short amount of time the outer part of a steel wheel took shape.

Carl hammered at the iron, he could do it with the system or without. But it was so much faster with the system he only did things manually now when the system didn’t have what he wanted. Steel wagon wheels though were part of the blacksmith skill. Joe walked up to the bed of coals wearing his spare leather apron and began to work the bellows to keep the iron hot. Carl gave him a nod and the two of them continued to work on the wheels.

Sarah was clean, It had only been a few days but she was not used to going even a day without a shower. She supposed she would get used to it since safe places to get clean were going to be harder to find. The wings were a pain though, she had to enlist the help of Rachel to get the area of her back where the wings joined. She returned the favor with Rachel who also needed help reaching different areas. Gathering up the dirty clothes, and any feathers for Rachel, they headed back out to the workroom.

Everyone had settled down doing their evening chores while Carl and Joe worked on the forge. They checked weapons and armor for damage, sharpened swords and worked on any skills they could. The dogs on the other hand did what dogs do when things are quite and slept.

Joe set the helmet down next to the other armor they had made for Arnold. They had gone through all the metal from the weights and were cannibalizing a large metal plant Carl had made. Thinking back to the fight with the troll Joe needed to get some armor for his dogs, and looking at the large leaves he had some ideas. “Carl do you think we could use some of these leaves tae shape some basic armor for the dogs? Last trolls we fought would have killed my dogs in one hit. Ah need something tae mitigate the damage or just keep them out of fights and use them for scouting.”

Carl looked at the large triangular leaves and at the dogs, “Yeah we could do something with this but we’ll need some leather for backing and to protect the dogs from the edges of the metal.”

Joe thought to the last two trolls and the hides they recovered. Looking back to the party sitting around a large work table he asked, “Is it all right with everyone if we use the troll hides for some dog armor?”

Sarah looked up from hammering some of her mail rings flat, they had become twisted when one of the trolls tried to grab her. “I don’t have a problem with it, from the damage those trolls did to us, if they had hit one of the dogs it would have killed them.” As she went back to repairing the rings she got a pop up.

Congratulations! You have acquired the skill Basic Armor Repair I

Stamina Loss -10

Not hearing any objections Joe went to where the wagons were and grabbed the two troll hides. When he got back Carl had already trimmed a dozen metal leaves off. Carl looked up at him, “Hand me the hides, armorsmithing includes some basic leather working. We’ll shape the leaves and then rivet the them to the leather. The medium leaves will work for the heads, they are all triangular in shape which will work great. The larger leaves we’ll put the broad ends to help cover the shoulders and the rest of the leave will cover the dogs sides and the spine.” They went to work.

April 4, 0300 Hrs.

Carl was pleased with the results, they had gotten all four sets of armor done. In the process he gained a new skill called beast armorsmithing and the dogs armor all came with basic regeneration. He still had a good chunk of the leather left and he planned on adding it to Arnolds and his own armor. “Well Joe we made have made it, but you get to convince your dogs to wear it.” Laughing he started cleaning up his work area.

Joe grinned at Carl, but he didn’t think he would have a problem, staring at one of the completed sets of armor he got a pop up.

Natures Barding of Regeneration.

He would have to get Donna to give him the specifics, but that could wait till they all woke up. Heading to his own bedroll Joe fell asleep almost immediately.