Akira and Delgar sat at a table in a dim corner of the tavern quietly drinking.

After multiple large gulps, Delgar slammed his now emptied glass onto the table and let out a loud belch.

The table was cluttered with multiple empty plates, most of which had been emptied by Delgar.

“What did I tell you? This place sure can fill you up and the drinks aren't all that bad either,” said Delgar.

“You know, I'm somewhat interested in what type of work you do. What profession would require you to hunt such dangerous monsters?” asked Akira whose cheeks had a slight red tint from drinking the ale Delgar insisted he drink. This was a local special which was five times as potent as any other alcoholic drink he had tasted before.

“My job? I have a small general weapon and armor shop with a smithy in the back. But mainly I get requests to repair things, sometimes I get a rare request for a personalized sword or a set of armor so I do that type of work also. You could say I do a bit of everything. When business is slow I usually make cheaper weapons, armor, shields and other trinkets to sell in my shop,” said Delgar.

“Oooo, I really do admire those how can create weapons and armor from lumps of metal with just the use of a hammer, some muscle, and a fire,” said Akira with stars in his eyes.

“BARMAID MORE ALE!,” shouted Delgar holding up his wooden mug and shouting.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I have a name use it!” a female dwarf shouted back at him.

“Glola, more ale!” shouted Delgar.

A few seconds later the female dwarf Glola walked up to the table with two new mugs of freshly poured ale and slammed them onto the table in front of Delgar, causing some of the liquid to splash onto the table.

“Honestly, you're always such a handful,” said Glola with a frown, turning towards Akira her frown turned into a warm smile, “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No thank you. I'm quite full,” said Akira.

“I'm glad you enjoyed the meal. I'll take the dishes now that you're all done with them,” said Glola picking up the empty plates and silverware before leaving.

“Jeez she's always like that,” grumbled Delgar.

“Is she your wife?” Akira asked curiously.

“Pffft...,” ale flew out of Delgar's mouth and he began violently coughing.

After Delgar stopped coughing he cleared his throat and hurriedly asked, “What nonsense are you spouting?”

“You guys seem close so I thought I'd ask,” said Akira wiping off the ale that spat onto his face.

“No, we're not married. We have known each other since we were kids since our fathers used to hang out and drink a lot and would tell us to go play together. That's all there is to it,” said Delgar.

“Ah, I see,” said Akira.

At that moment the tavern door slammed open drawing Akira and Delgar's attention as three shabbily armored middle-aged men walked in complaining loudly to each other.

“Why did we have to be sent all the way out to this backwoods midget town? It seems company leader has it in for us giving us this task,” whined one of the three men.

“At least all we were ordered to do was look for some guy and capture him. If it weren't for the 500 gold crown bounty on his head I would cuss out the leader and tell him to go search for himself,” said the second one.

Upon hearing them talking about searching for someone and a bounty, Akira's ears perked up as his full attention zeroed in on their conversation.

“Whoever that guy is he must have pissed someone off for them to pay 500 gold crowns for his capture,” said the third.

“Might as well eat and drink a lot while we're here not like the person was looking for is going to be in this town when we haven't seen him in any of the rest,” said the first leading the group over to where Glola was standing behind a counter.

After a saying a few words to Glola that Akira and Delgar couldn't hear. They must have said something to piss her off because she began shouting at the top of her lungs sending curses towards them, to which the three men shouted back enraging Glola even more.

“Um, should we go help her take care of those guys?” asked Akira.

“Not if you don't want to get beaten up along with them,” said Delgar as he watched Glola start to beat up the helpless trio.

The three bounty hunters hurriedly ran out the building with their tails between their legs with Glola sending curses after them.

“She's always like this way to easy to anger,” said Delgar looking at her.

As if sensing someone was talking about her Glola glared at Delgar for a few seconds before resuming her work behind the counter.

“Now what were we talking about again?” asked Delgar stealthily trying to changing the topic.

“You were telling me about your shop,” Akira reminded him with a smile.

“Ah yes, the shop. I inherited it from my father and he from his own father. It is quite an old shop. I learned everything I know from my father in that shop. My grandfather was a well know weaponsmith back in his time the shop was always busy unlike how it is now. I have been trying to perfect my skill for over a hundred years. I'm not that bad if I do say so myself but nowhere near the masterpieces that my grandfather created. My main goal in life is to create at least one thing that can surpass his greatest work!” said Delgar slamming his fist on the table.

“Oh are the things he created that famous?”

“Extremely! His greatest creation was a war hammer he made which was gifted to the dwarven king at the time. That very same war hammer is still used as the main weapon by the current king!”

“You've set yourself a huge challenge. I wish I could learn blacksmithing.”

“This challenge is only the first step. I want to be able to make my family name recognized again and in doing so receive many apprentices,” said Delgar staring off into the distance seeing a future where all his dreams were achieved.

“Enough about that since it's getting late we better leave before mean Glola throws us out. You seem to be a good enough person and seeing as this is your first time in this town you can stay at my place and save a few coins since the inn isn't that cheap here,” said Delgar before chugging down the last of his ale.

“Thanks! That would be great as I don't have that much money on me,” said Akira.

Delgar stood up and went to pay for their food and drinks.

After a few words with Glola, Delgar and Akira exited the tavern and began walking towards Delgar's house with slightly unsteady feet.

Delgar's house was located above the shop he had mentioned earlier. The shop was like most dwarven architecture in the other towns carved from the mountain.

They stumbled up the stairs in into the living area where Delgar took Akira to the guest room. After Delgar left he quickly took off his shoes and sank into the small bed with his feet hanging off the edge, and immediately fell asleep.

***

Bang! Clang!

Akira was awakened by the loud noises coming from somewhere under his room. His mouth was dry and his head throbbed letting him know had a slight hangover left from the night before.

Sitting up he found a glass of water on the bedside table, he grabbed the glass and began to chug down the water. The throbbing in his head was more noticeable for a few minutes and then began to lessen after a short while.

Exiting the guest room he walked down the stairs and entered the shop. The noise that had woken him up was coming from the back of the shop.

Upon opening the door that led to where all the noise was coming from, Akira felt a blast of heat hit him all at once.

Inside the room was Delgar, wearing protective gear while hammering on a cherry red piece of metal.

He continued to hit the metal until it cooled down and lost its malleability, which he then placed it deep into the furnaces burning coals to heat it back up.

“Good morning. Sorry about the noise, but I have to get a few orders and other things done today,” shouted an energetic Delgar who turned towards Akira greet him before turning his gaze back to the metal watching it as the fire's temperature began to rise as he used a large pair of old bellows to pump air into the burning coals.

“Yeah, morning. Mind if I watch?” asked Akira.

“Help yourself, there's some bread and cheese on the table if you want something to eat. And if you're brave enough there's some of the leftover dried meat from the boar we roasted a while ago,” replied Delgar before picking up the piece of metal with a sturdy pair of tongs checking to see if it was hot enough to start hammering again.

Judging that it was the right temperature he swiftly brought the metal over to his anvil a few feet away, where he began to use his hammer to expertly mold the metal into the shape he wanted. From what Akira could see it looked to be a short-sword that Delgar was currently making.

Akira slowly munched on the food offered, while he watched Delgar finish hammering the sword into the desired shape. When he finished inspecting the short-sword he once again placed it into the fire, constantly moving it around to make sure the sword was evenly heated.

Once the short-sword was again at the right temperature of a bright cherry red he pulled it out and quenched the short-sword in a medium sized stone trough full of a special oil sending flares of fire to dance around the sword while the short sword was quickly cooled to the room temperature.

After the sword had fully cooled Delgar placed the sword on top of the bed of burning coals to temper the sword. Slowly moving it back and forth through the fire keeping a sharp eye on the color of the sword on both of its sides. When the sword's color on the outer edge became a light straw color with the middle being a plum purple he took it out and again quenched it in the oil.

After the sword was fully cooled down the sword was placed on a rack with a few other tempered swords that were waiting to be filled and polished.

All through the morning, Delgar worked on a few more swords and a helmet, only putting his tools aside in the early afternoon.

He walked over to a wash basin to washed his face, neck, and arms before talking to Akira.

“How 'bout we go and get us some food from Glola, I'm starved,” suggested Delgar.

***

“You seem to be mightily interested in blacksmithing, watching my boring work. If I remember correctly you did say something about your interest in it last night. I have the afternoon free so if you like I could try and teach you some of the basics. Along with properly repairing and sharpening your sword,” Delgar spoke between eating a spoonful of stew.

“Really? I would be very grateful for whatever you could teach me. I hope it is not asking for too much,” said Akira.

“It's no big deal. This is just a small task. If I want to revive my family's name and take in apprentices I need to know how to teach also. We can take a look at your sword when we get back to the shop,” said Delgar.

***

Back at the shops forge Akira handed his sword over to Delgar to inspect.

“Hmm...this poor sword, just look at how bad he's been mistreated. Although an untrained eye can not see the damage, I can tell that your sword has many hairline fractures. Good thing you have me to look over it otherwise most likely in the next battle you would have tried to use it, it would have ended up shattering into numerous pieces,” grumbled Delgar as he continued to inspect it.

Placing the sword on the anvil he used his hammer to break the sword into multiple pieces.

“Ahh! Why are you breaking it?” asked Akira shocked.

“The sword was already broken. There's no other way to fix it but to completely reforge it,” said Delgar as he gathered the pieces and stacked them in a tower-like structure, and again hammered the larger pieces into smaller ones and adding them to the small tower. He placed them to the side on the table, and then walked over to a box full of scrap iron and brought it back to Akira.

“Before we start the reforging of your sword, you should get some experience on how to do everything. Put these on,” said Delgar picking up and throwing a pair of thick leather gloves along with a heavy leather apron towards Akira.

Over the next two hours, Akira was taught the basics of controlling the fire in the furnace. How to tell when the metal was ready to be hammered, and how to use the hammer properly, along with learning how to use a file properly.

Akira was given a rusty piece of iron to practice on until Delgar deemed his work decent enough.

“I think we can start working on your sword now. You'll be in charge of keeping the fire going while the pieces are being smelted into an ingot. After the smelting, you and I will both work on hammering the ingot folding it a few times. After that I will control the movement of the iron and instruct you when to hit the iron to start shaping the sword,” said Delgar.

“Are you sure I'm ready for something like this?” asked Akira.

“It's either now or never. Better to learn by doing now when you have a such a great teacher like me, so you can understand how it all works and get some muscle memory. Enough talk, let us begin! Keep the fire roaring,” ordered Delgar switching into a serious mode.

Throughout the rest of the day and into the early night they worked on reforging Akira's sword. Heating the iron and then hammering it with full strength. Akira tried to be as quick as he could be, while still being accurate before the metal had a chance to cool down and would be required to be put back into the furnace and reheated.

“I think that's good enough for today. Let's get something to eat and then sleep. We can work on the filing, sharpening, and polish tomorrow,” said Delgar after they finished filing, quenching and tempering Akira's sword.

After washing they both ate a simple soup with hard bread, before heading to sleep.

***

Akira was listening to Delgar and watching him as he demonstrated again how to properly file the sword and sharpen its edges.

After a full morning of shaping the edge with the file and grinding the excess off of the rest of the sword. Delgar checked it again before instructed him on using a large whetstone to polish the sword and putting a proper edge on the sword.

Delgar took over the rest letting Akira watch as he worked on the hilt, adding the cross-guard, grip, and pommel.

The finished reforged short-sword was finally handed over to Akira after Delgar had sheathed the sword.

Akira unsheathed the sword and swung it a few times. The feeling the sword gave was different from before, if I had to describe it he would say it felt less crude. Now the sword was a better fit for his hand, the weight of the sword felt more balanced. Overall it was a large improvement from the old sword.

Sword stats:

Durability: 18/18

Attack: 13-16

“Amazing,” said Akira.

“Eh, it's not that great I've done better,” said Delgar.

Ding!

Do you wish to add blacksmithing as your subclass?

Yes | No

“Yes!” said Akira without taking another second to decide whether or not he should accept or even what he was accepting.

Ding!

Blacksmith Sub-Class Quest Part 1:

In order to receive the blacksmith subclass, you will be required to create a shield with Aorium ore in order to prove your skill as a blacksmith.

First goal: Acquire twenty pieces of Aorium ore.

Difficulty: Unknown

Reward: Blacksmith subclass and its related stat.

“Hey Delgar do you know where Aorium ore can be found?” asked Akira.

“Aorium? I'm surprised you would ask about that. There's an old mine in this village that has it. Although It has been blocked off for longer then I can remember, due to it being overrun by some nasty monsters long ago. Many a dwarf before have tried to clear the mine but each and everyone has never walked back out of the mine once entering. Forcing it to be abandoned,” said Delgar.