‘This is where metal is shaped then sold.’ How does a culture like this actually exist? Who could possibly be so buffoonish?

The sign above the smithy door had become the target of her ire. The maligned phrase was perched above the painted image of an anvil.

Karen hesitated to do so, not wanting to be in a position to lose all her worldly possessions for the second time this week.

She did as she was told, pulling the slender loop from her finger and placing it between her shoes. As expected, the words of the sign twisted out of their English form and into the scribblings of the elves. What wasn’t expected was how that twisted scribbling formed the shape of a hammer caught in mid blow coming down on the painted anvil.

Karen had her ring back on before he’d even made his point, but still took a moment to ponder the message. If they love aesthetics so much why do the buildings look like all red rubik’s cubes? Why did the paper the customs jerk had look like it was written by two year old monkey on a farm?

Karen had mixed feelings on this. Two thirds of the picts she’d met were rat bastards who each deserved to have one half of one inn burn to the ground for every tooth currently missing from her head. On the other hand, the woman who had purchased her stack of mystical carrots was an absolute gem.

Lucky for me I’m not a pict.

It sounded ominous. Luckily, she hadn’t heard it. Karen had gotten bored of the spirit harping on about racist elves and decided it was high time she see what a magical blacksmith shop looked like.

In a word: disappointing.

The two parts of the shop were very quickly classified as the ‘boring part’ and the ‘fun part.’ They didn’t even do any of the work inside, the only person there was a bored looking teenager.

The boring part had initially deceived its way into some attention before Karen realized the huge selection of axes were entirely intended to be used on wood. A good assortment of saws, nails, hammers, and various things she didn’t know the name of or purpose for took up a huge bulk of the place. The fun part barely commanded its own corner, and most of the weapons had very clearly seen some use and lived in a barrel.

With some persuasion, the bored teenelfer started rattling off prices, starting with outrageously expensive for custom work and falling all the way to surprisingly affordable for the barrel trash. Once the spirit crushed the illusion of choice, becoming a barrelselect elite member became the only thing on the menu. The spirit helped her pick a sturdy, single edged knife to start. Then the more subjective portion took over.

Karen stared dubiously at the used inventory. You speak to me, that’s already too much.

Karen picked up a saber and gave it an experimental heft. It felt much lighter than she expected. Guns suit me. I could use a gun like a normal person.

The short sword in her hand felt surprisingly good. She liked the weight of it. It made her feel powerful just to grip it.

The basics. Doesn’t get more basic than a really big knife. Maybe a sharpened stick. There actually was a sharp stick there. The wood was weathered and smooth looking down the length and it had a gradient of stains that was darkest where the shaft met the head. The point still looked wickedly sharp even though the metal was dinged and worn with age. She reached for it fully intending to make a remark about cavemen weapons.

The moment her fingers clamped down on the wood that familiar flash frozen feeling of source interaction shot through her. It was easily as intense as when she’d bonded the spirit contract, but it came and went in a fraction of the time.

Whoa. What was that? She’d freed it from the barrel and had begun inspecting it closely.

Neat. It did feel good in her hand. Better than any of the swords had. She ran one hand down the full seven feet of length. It was natural, almost as if it wasn’t the first time she’d handled it.

The spirit made her do a once over for cracks and fitment, remarking on the materials and stating she’d have no way to see the magical quality of the materials until she was strong enough to open her spiritual sight.

The negotiations were short, and the kid didn’t seem particularly interested in trying to maneuver for profit. Two hundred and forty five stones stayed in the shop and the knife and spear left with her.

---

In Karen’s experience, hard work was the only way to get anything worthwhile. It was for this reason she didn’t suffer even a moment of hesitation in following the spirit’s instruction. Obeying and enjoying are far from the same thing, and some people are oh so eager to make their displeasure known. Make it known she did.

“My feet hurt. The ground is too hard.”

“It’s hard to run. The ground is too soft.”

“All the moss here stinks, why can’t we go somewhere else?”

“Running with a stick is awkward. I don’t like it.”

“This rock is too hard to pick up.”

“This river is too loud to meditate.”

“Already? I haven’t caught my breath yet.”

The last time she had done any kind of cardio had been for a very good cause. She and the girls had signed up for a 5k supporting cancer research, walked the whole way, then gotten day drunk on mimosas to celebrate. To top that off, she had also sponsored the event, and all she had to do was supply one hundred and fifty pizzas at the finish line. For a bit north of three hundred and fifty dollars her business got some press as local heroes.

This process was a lot less fun. There were a few similarities between how her body felt right then and being day drunk. She felt flush, nauseated, and uncoordinated. More importantly, she was lying on the ground totally unable to get up. She struggled for a moment before giving up and lying still, gasping the whole while.

I’m stuck.

How can I move on to a next step? I can’t even take a step right now. Asshole.

The return trip was even more miserable than the run out. The spirit had insisted she clean up in a stream so her rotten, fetid sweat didn’t get her mistaken as a bog monster and put to death. By the time she trudged into the village bone tired, damp, and freezing she no longer had the energy to be angry.

There wasn’t even energy to haggle, instead simply paying for three glass bowls and a dented canteen at the requested price. Wooden bowls would have cost next to nothing, but the spirit insisted, so glass it was. All told, the four items cost her more than the weapons had early that day.

A worthwhile payoff was promised, and after a few more hours of hunting down what was asked fo, all the while shaking like a fawn, Karen sat with her legs around a tree stump table. It wasn’t the workspace she’d been accustomed to, but finally sitting after spending so long struggling was a relief in itself. What the spirit promised could just be her bonus for a good day’s labor.

Will you at least tell me what I’m about to make?

What if I don’t want to kill anything? You think of that?

“I’m not a goon, you’re a goon.” Karen whimpered diplomatically, but issued no further complaints.

Karen focused on the ring in her hand, visualized the space within, then mentally pulled on the canteen. There was the slightest bit of resistance then the dented, spoon-head shaped piece of metal materialized in her hand.

Though she’d drank her fill earlier, it was emptied as instructed. She noted the water was as frigid as when she’d filled it hours ago. Would the ring keep icecream fresh? Maybe she wouldn’t need a fridge anymore.

She fiddled with the cork as she peered down the neck of the thing. It wasn’t actually cork, more of a dense, fibrous moss, but she liked how it felt when she squeezed it. Not wanting to disappoint, she jammed the tip of her finger and winged it. She couldn’t actually see it, but in her mind it felt like black smoke flowing out then… nothing.

That’s it?

Shouldn’t your stupid space magic be showier?

Preparing the rest turned out to be something like extremely tedious cooking. First, the same kind of root she’d gathered yesterday had to be shaved like the leg of the world’s grossest barbie, shedding the rooty fur to reveal the white flesh under. After, it was pulped between two smooth stones and placed in a bowl.

Second, about a trillion teeny, green berries had to be separated from their pits. It would have been more rewarding if each weren’t composed mostly of pit, though Karen had time to daydream during the tedium that the site of her impromptu kitchen would one day be host to dozens of bushes thanks to her work. The green pile also got its own dish.

The last was easiest. A couple clumps of long grass from she’d yanked from the bank of a stream met its end between a fresh pair of stones. The resulting yellow paste found its way into the final dish. More than an hour had passed hunched over and her back had started to throb and tighten.

The speech did not inspire a lot of confidence, but Karen felt too tired and too invested to back out. Going with the flow was easy, and a pinch of laziness mixed with curiosity was a powerful motivator.

The spirit laid out its instructions and she began. There was a sharp sizzle like meat dropped onto a hot pan as the first bowl was filled halfway with wizard water. By the time the second bowl was sizzling with its own potterwater, the first had begun belching out white smoke. She reflexively took a step back, not wanting whatever would ‘be bad’ to do its badding to her.

Twin white plumes puffed forth endlessly like two teens showing off their sweetest vape tricks. A quick handful of seconds later the white began to pinken, signaling the start of the next stage. A smoking bowl was snatched up in each hand and the contents simultaneous emptied into the grass paste, carefully attempting to balance between speed and splash. Another little sizzle announced the combination, but more interestingly the solids she had taken so long to prepare had up and vanished into their respective green and white fluids.

A few neglected droplets were still giving a sedate smoke where the dishes had been abandoned in the dirt, and Karen carefully skirted around them, eyes locked in on the main event as she moved. The smoke had already ceased by the time she’d made it around the stump.

I… drink it?

Drawing it up to her face and giving the bowl a tentative sniff didn’t yield any hints as to what was to come. The cartoonish toxic waste green gave the impression it would taste like sour apple. Maybe atomic lime. The afternoon sun was doing its best to mask it but she was fairly certain the concoction was glowing with its own internal light.

The natural instinct to object didn’t even need to be suppressed. It was in there someone, but like most of her suppressed and tired emotions it was un-a-vailable. All she had left was relief at being finished, a truckload of exhaustion, and a double dose of fuck it.

Down the hatch it went, all in one chug like an alchemist frat party.

She found the flavor was a bit one note: Somewhat thin on the palate, initially disgustingly bitter with strong hints of acridly bitter, and a finish of powerfully burning bitterness that lingered everywhere it touched. More than lingered. The entire path from lips to gut felt like a bitter bonfire.

She wanted to speak. She wanted to scream. She wanted to breath. She had to settle for dropping to her knees and plopping to the ground.

The spirit loosed a sigh that would never be heard by anyone but itself as Karen was already out like a light.