(Baila’s POV)

“Nekineki, keep bellowing” Anoobis barks as he smacks the end of the cutting triangle while Ravenna holds the end of the sword, keeping it steady. Apparently he feels it’s more accurate…which it seems to be.

I keep eye on the bloomery, listening intently to the airy breaths of fire emanating from it.

Anoobis cuts off one edge of the metal in a neat line and plunges it back into the forge, airily fueled by Nekineki to keep the fire burning.

Wrenching it back out, the metal red hot once more, He begins smacking the triangle on the other heated edge, cutting it in a similar line, creating a point to the blade.

Without waiting, he grabs the middle of the metal and thrusts the other un-worked end into the fire, letting it heat up within the forge’s blaze quickly.

Taking it out, he cuts notches either side a bit up from the end, about a fist and a half’s width, and then slowly cuts down, having to re-heat the metal twice in the process, creating the tang.

He leaves the marginally shaped metal to one side, grabs a small bar of iron with tongs and purposefully stomps up to the forge.

Thrusting his tongs into the blazing forge, he takes the iron out after a short moment.

Taking the heated metal to the anvil, he hammers it and does his best to shape it into a rectangle.

He manages it somewhat.

Reheating it and re-hammering it, he also cuts it using the triangle to make a better rectangle shape, the guard.

Heating that guard, he cuts a slit in the center using the triangle and then after heating it once more, takes the tang and begins gently hammering it through the small slit.

Putting the slit into the forge, it heats up both the tang and the guard, making it simpler for them to smack the tang through.

Again and again this heating and hammering process happens till finally the guard reaches the top of the tang.

Heating the tang again, he begins lightly hammering on the edges flattening them.

Flattening the guard also, he then heats up the blade.

Smacking the blade, we all watch it thin out a small amount.

He should stop, this is dangerous.

But he doesn’t and he swings his hammer once more, stopping midway, from instinct or fear I don’t know, but he stops.

…

..

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He takes the sword by the tang and raises it in the sky. “I believe a little sharpening and this’ll be done”

…

…

-Quite a while earlier.

“ALRIGHT YOU MAGGOTS, WELCOME TO MY FORGE” He gestures to the massive underground forge he has…enough to fit us all wow. “YOU WILL EAT, SLEEP AND WORK…SCRATCH THAT, YOU WILL JUST WORK HERE TILL EITHER YOU DIE OR YOU SUCCESSFULLY SMITH A WEAPON FOR ME”

Everybody cringes from his shouting.

“AS YOU CAN SEE BEHIND ME, THERE ARE 27 FORGES AND A HELL OF A LOT MORE OF YOU” He doesn’t look to pleased about that fact. “SO YOU WILL WORK TOGETHER ON THE SAME FORGE” He starts over to one, and we all meekly follow after.

“NOW THESE FORGES CONSIST OF 3 THINGS: THE ANVIL, THE FORGE ITSELF AND THE BLOOMERY. NOW YOU 3 GO OVER THERE AND YOU 4 TO THAT FORGE” He begins pointing at random people, grouping them up against their will.

Wait a second, but this means I won’t be with PJ or Big sister!

I see his large callused finger point to me and direct me to a forge quite a distance away.

Almost tearfully I look towards PJ and Big sister as they get pointed in different directions.

Heading over to my forge

…

..

.

“Jarken, can I have a-”

“NO YOU MAY NOT”

Ok…ok. Guess I’ll live with the fact that I’m stuck with the A-hole jackal…

“Well, since we are stuck here in what will eventually show itself to be hell, would be nice to introduce one another” The raven-beastlady spoke. “I am Ravenna”

“Anoobis” The jackal nods his head as he stands behind her, a distance away from me, rightly so should I add. But since he’s working with me I can’t let my emotions get better of me.

“NekiNeki” The cat beast-lady with a bursting top and short golden ruffled hair gives us an innocent toothy smile.

“Baila”

“Well now that we all know each-”

“LISTEN UP MAGGOTS. BY YOUR FORGE, YOU WILL NOTICE A PILE OF IRON ORE AS WELL AS A PILE OF CHARCOAL. IF YOU WANT TO SMITH A WEAPON YOU NEED THE IRON AND NOT THE ORE, OR YOUR WEAPONS WILL TURN OUT LIKE THOSE LOUSY ‘DAGGERS’ OF YOURS” He put an emphasis on ‘daggers’ since they were so badly made they couldn’t really be considered anything else than melted ore. Though it still passed us…

“YOUR BLOOMERY” He places his huge hand on a chimney shaped object with a hatch at the bottom and a hole through the top “IS WHERE YOU SMELT YOUR IRON FROM YOUR ORE. TO DO SO, YOU NEED TO FILL IT WITH CHARCOAL AND SET THAT ON FIRE. THEN YOU PLACE THE CRUSHED IRON ORE IN THERE”

“Crushed iron ore?” MrSpeedTurtle speaks up for the sake of the group.

“DAMN RIGHT. YOU HAVE TO PULVERISE THE IRON ORE FIRST, SMASHING IT TO PIECES. HOW, YOU DON’T ASK? WITH THE HAMMERS ON YOUR ANVIL OF COURSE! THERE’S A BOWL TO THE SIDE TO COLLECT YOUR WORK AND TO POUR IT INTO THE BLOOMERY. NOW GET TO WORK!”

Everyone immediately jumps to work, terrified of him booming voice.

“Alright, Baila and I shall fill up the Bloomery, get it on fire while NekiNeki and Anoobis smash the iron ore”

Ravenna claps her hands and we all get to work, not complaining since there’s a good skill at hand.

Placing some charcoal in the bottom of the Bloomery, we set it on fire with a flint and steel that was lying on the anvil.

“So it should take a while for it to heat up, so we need to continue feeding it”

We both add small amount of charcoal as the fire slowly increases, watching the fumes with our every breath for way too long for my own sanity.

Finally looking away at the decently done fire, I spot both of them smacking away at the iron, quite literally pulverizing it with their hammers.

Broken into small chunks, they seem to think it’s enough.

“BEFORE ANY OF YOU IDIOTS CHUCK YOUR IRON ORE INTO THE FIRE, YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE YOU CAN ADD CHARCOAL TO THE BLOOMERY IN A 1:1 RATIO” Ok thanks for the info, almost too late.

Though I do see some mild crying from somewhere…seems like they rushed it, oh no.

We throw charcoal into the bowl till there’s a mostly equal amount in the bowl before pouring it into the bloomery.

…

..

.

And now we wait?

…

..

.

Do we continue waiting?

I peek over to Jarken, who is strolling around checking everyone out silently with an amused expression.

Oh no we’ve done it wrong somehow haven’t we?

“Check out the hatch” Anoobis points to it finally and I open it.

…

..

.

“Nothing”

“That’s not right” both Anoobis and Ravenna muse.

“Guys I can still see the iron ore chilling on the top” Nekineki is peeking over the top looking rather mesmerized at the fire.

“Aha! We haven’t crushed it enough” Anoobis snaps his fingers and rushes to the iron ore pile. “You guys empty up the bloomery, Ravenna, come crush the ore with me”.

I grab the spade that we’ve been provided and start emptying it out, chucking the coal…onto the floor I guess.

There isn’t really a waste bucket or anything…so random waste pile it is.

Filling and lighting (thankfully a lot easier this time) the bloomery, we watch both Anoobis and Ravenna bash away at the iron ore, crushing individual chunks into smaller ones, the size of small pebbles.

Both are already sweating lightly.

“Switch please?”Anoobis asks and I am half wanting to say no, but I’ve got to work together, I can kill him later with my new weapon.

Taking the hammer off Ravenna, I choose a small piece and crush it with my hammer, accidentally scattering the granules.

“Hit it with a bit less force” Anoobis not so helpfully adds to my side.

Whacking the next piece with less fervor, it breaks after a few hits, not flying every which way this time.

Piece after piece after piece and finally after God knows how long, they’re all decently tiny pieces, not quite sand-like but similar.

Mixing it with charcoal we add it in and this time we can almost instantly hear a small airy breath of fire come from the bloomery.

Ah! Something is happening!

We wait until the noise dies down a considerable amount, which took about 20 minutes, before opening up the hatch and seeing a strange crystalline structure glowing bright orange.

“Get the tongs” I keep my eyes peeled on the, what I guess is iron.

Tongs appear next to my face and I take them, grabbing hold of the ‘iron’ and placing it on the anvil.

“NOW FOR ALL OF YOU THAT HAVE FIGURED OUT HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY SMELT IRON, WELL DONE. THE REST OF YOU MAGGOTS LISTEN UP ANYWAYS BECAUSE YOU’LL EVENTUALLY MAKE IT HERE, EVENTUALLY, WE HOPE” He flashes a cheeky grin towards a group of bird-beastmen who are having a hard time keeping the bloomery lit… “THE CRYSTALINE STRUCTURE IS CALLED A BLOOM AND THIS IS WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE HAMMERING INTO SUBMISSION. SO GET ON WITH IT”

At least Jenna gave us some form of instructions…this is just like a hands on experience!

“Right, we should light the forge” Ravenna points towards our unlit forge…hmm really should’ve thought ahead.

I start shoveling charcoal into there with Ravenna.

“While that’s happening we should start smelting some more Iron” Anoobis speaks from behind and I spot Nekineki taking some iron ore.

“Should we all get a station and do rotations?” Ravenna asks while she sparks the flint and steel.

“One for bloomery, one for iron smashing, one for forge and one for anvil?” Anoobis suggests as he begins smacking the iron ore.

“I’ll take bloomery” Nekineki shouts out and runs towards what I’m guessing is the easiest job.

“I’ll take forge then” Ravena, successfully lighting the forge begins blowing lightly on the small fire.

“Anvil is mine” Anoobis looks at me “Unless you want it of course”

“…you can have anvil” Guess he has a better idea than the rest of us in hammering metal, since he did make his own dagger before.

I get a hammer and start smacking the iron ore, breaking it up on the edge of the anvil.

The fire whooshes up in the forge and I spot Ravenna walking over to a strange fan-shaped object. A bellow if I remember correctly. I have seen those before in movies.

While she bellows the forge, keeping the fire burning hot, Anoobis takes the bloom with tongs and places it in the forge.

Smacking my ore, I can hear Anoobis whacking the bloom next to me, but out of my vision due to me trying to concentrate.

Phew, this is difficult work.

Bashing the ore to quite literal smithereens, I collect a small pile of 3 pieces, slowly smashing and adding them up in the bowl one by one.

After multiple breaks from burning muscles, I finally smack the last piece into granules and lower my aching arms.

Dragging the bowl over to the bloomer, I spot that it’s gone out.

“Neki” She looks at me with a confused look “Where’s the fire?”

She looks down at the bloomer, feigning surprise.

I don’t like Anoobis, but at least he tries.

“Right, everyone switch stations” Anoobis calls out, the hammering noise finally stopping…

I guess I’m staying at the bloomer, and re-lighting the damned thing.

Once lit, I mix charcoal with the granulated iron ore and chuck that in.

Listening intently to the airy breath of fire, it’s quite difficult to do with the incessant hammering that’s taking place barely a foot away.

After a short while, I open the hatch and take out a large bloom, much larger than before due to using 3 iron ore instead of one, and place it on the anvil.

“Switch” Nekineki calls out as she hands the hammer to me….

Wait, what was she hammering if there wasn’t any bloom to hammer?

On the anvil now, I spot a rectangularish shape off to the side, what I’m guessing used to be the first bloom.

Taking my bloom into the forge, I heat it up and then once heated, place it back onto the anvil.

Smacking it, sparks shoot off almost touching me.

Trying not to hit myself with the sparks, I hammer at the bloom, having to reheat it soon due to it cooling down.

Turning it around a few times, smacking it into what is around the shape of a bar, I see that a decent amount of the ‘iron’ falls off in the process.

“Jarken, just what’s happening?” I ask him as he passes through and point at the small black sheet that fell off when I hammered.

“BLOOMS ARE NOT JUST METAL, THEY’RE A COMBINATION OF IRON AND SLAG. SO WHEN YOU HAMMER IT, THE SLAG WILL FALL OFF” He shouts for everyone to hear, guess he isnt’ bothered to answer the same question more than once.

Ok, so that means that the amount of iron I get isn’t as much as the bloom suggests.

Though it looks like I’ve still gotten around a bar and a half’s worth.

Huh, so 50% of the bloom is slag…

“Switch” I’m done with hammering so to the forge and to bellow, which shouldn’t be so hard a job…

Why’s the fire burning so low?

Dammit, that Nekineki is going to get it!

“Neki come here” I gesture angrily towards me and she just simply looks at me and begins lightly tapping away at the iron ore.

“I’m busy”

I turn to the rest of the group “Alright, I say we all make our own weapons”

“That was always the plan” Both of them shrug, shocking me a little bit since I thought we were working together.

The colour drains off her fresh face a little.

“Wait, but aren’t we a team?”She gives us large cat eyes, sorry but that isn’t going to work for anyone here.

Ravenna puts a hand on Nekineki’s petite shoulder “I’ll always play for your team…But this time it’s everyone for themselves”

…

..

.

What an odd wording of that phrase, but it gets the point across I guess?

“But we’re at a forge together, shouldn’t we work together?”

“Well actually we don’t need to, hence the whole circuit plan that we have going” Anoobis points out.

Ah, that does actually make sense; since the circuit is 1: crushing ore, 2: smelting it, 3: hammering it and 4: keeping the forge going.

Well number 4 does help the others…but if you don’t keep it going, then the person before you won’t or shouldn’t as a way to boycott you.

Huh, pretty smart now that I think about it.

“-And that is why we’re not working together…” Anoobis finished explaining my thoughts to Nekineki, who looks on to be the verge of crying.

To be honest, I would’ve believed Ravenna to be in that position…since she’s stuck with her minions all the time…but she seems to be fine getting down to work.

“But I’m not strong enough to hammer the metal” I see a tear rolling down her cheek…really?

“YOU THERE” Jarken appears from nowhere, voice booming above the din of hammering, no idea how “WHY ARE YOU NOT WORKING!”

“She’s too weak to hammer” Anoobis mercilessly points towards Nekineki who immediately looks like a frightened cat (the irony).

“YOU’RE TOO WEAK TO HAMMER?” He shoves a hammer into her hand and points at the bloom that Ravenna was going to hammer “HAMMER IT”

She gives it a light tap

“HAH, WEAKLING. OH I HAVE A SPECIAL HAMMER JUST FOR YOU” His laugh isn’t boisterous like usual, but much darker, rather angry.

He takes out a hammer from a sack (he's apparently walking around with it), like the one before, except that it’s twice the size, about the size of a guitar if I had to liken it to something, giving it to her, sending both it and her to the floor.

“HAMMER IT”

Standing up, she grunts and strains to lift the hammer off the floor. Well it could actually be that heavy…but I believe she’s just faking.

“HAMMER, THE DAMNABLE BLOOM” He points towards it while looking at her with dark, uncaring eyes while she cries (definitely) fake tears as she tries to lift the hammer off the floor.

Though suddenly it swerves above her head and smacks into the bloom with quite some force as she continues crying, but with a sudden vigor in quantity.

“AGAIN” He smirks towards her, all darkness in his eyes gone.

*CLANG*

“AGAIN”

Her swings are full blown now as well as her tears…which I don’t think are fake.

She screams a blubbering cry as she lifts and smacks the iron with a raving madness as her tears stream down her face.

Jarken grabs the hammer mid swing in a cloth, and lifts it away from her with ease as she simply lets go of the hammer, toppling forward from the momentum

“GOOD NOW KEEP HAMMERING” He points to the smaller hammer and she gladly takes it, and hammers madly, grunting and crying while trembling like a leaf. I doubt she can even see out of her blurred eyes, but she’s somehow still hitting the well flattened bloom with good precision.

Once flat enough she stops, drops and quivers while letting the last vestige of her tears leave her eyes while she blows gently on her hands.

Jarken lets out a loud boisterous laughter as he gives her a light pat on the head.

“YOU LEARN QUICKER THAN MOST” he bends towards her “But if I find you playing around again, that hammer will not leave your hand”

…

..

.

*SHIVER*

I thought it’d be nice when he stops shouting…but it was much more terrifying when he spoke softly…

Nekineki nods and gets up, no longer crying, probably too scared too.

“Let’s get to work” She gives us a forced smile, probably more than half-scared to death.

We all nod and get back to it, along with everyone else…

Well back to ore smashing it is…

…

“Can we take a break?” I whine while I lean, exhausted, on the forge.

I’m so knackered I can barely believe we’ve done barely anything!

Over these past 2 hours, all we’ve done is smelt some iron, making 6 iron bars in total. 6 iron bars in 2 hours!

But we haven’t even begun making weapons and Jarken’s not giving instructions…apparently he wants us to make more.

“I’m actually having quite a bit of fun with this, so no point taking a break” Anoobis hammers his bloom, causing it to spark dangerously close to his face, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Well I have to give him points for being so enthusiastic, but I still don’t like him.

“Also if we take a break we’ll need to restart everything, so it’s not possible” Ravenna adds as she knocks away at the iron ore, sweat dripping from her face and arms, but she doesn’t seem to care.

Nekineki nods enthusiastically as she keeps her mostly undivided attention on the bloomery, making sure with utmost care that her iron ore smelts.

Quite literally using my body’s weight to push the bellows, I do get a small respite from this torturous work.

“Jarken, how long do we need to make Iron bars?” Someone whines from amidst the tired populace around the forges.

“WELL I’M JUST WAITING FOR YOU PILLOCKS TO ASK HOW TO MAKE WEAPONS INSTEAD OF JUST CRAPPILY SHAPED BARS”

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..

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Seriously? We needed to ask? Aaaugh….he is 10 times worse than Jenna, and she liked me too!

“So how do we make weapons?” A kobold asks meekly…probably one of the many victims from his shouting as he waltzed around…I was too busy and hardworked to actually listen to them all.

If you’re doing it wrong he’ll come round like a bloodhound and terrorize you with his voice.

And everyone can hear it happening.

It’s not nice.

But at least no one is not working their assess off…for obvious reasons.

Man, Joat would be so dead in here. Sucks he’s missing out on this.

“I’LL TEACH YOU HOW TO MAKE 5 THINGS; A SWORD, AN AXE, A SPEARHEAD, AN ARROWHEAD AND A MACE. SINCE THOSE ARE 5 BASIC WEAPON TYPES. FIRST UP AND SIMPLEST OF THE LOT IS A SWORD” huh would’ve thought sword would be most difficult.

He stomps over to a corner, taking a sack from there and empties it out on the floor.

Metal triangles about the size of my hand clang to the floor.

“THESE ARE CUTTING TRIANGLES, PLACE THEM ON YOUR ANVIL AND SMACK YOUR IRON ONTO THEM TO CUT IT” Everyone scampers to get one.

I grab one for my forge.

Hmm, so although it’s a triangle at the top, it’s got a vertical rectangular stump. Ah!

Placing it into the rectangular hole in the Anvil (had no idea what it was for until now) sure enough it fits!

“A SWORD IS MADE OF 3 PARTS” Jarken seemed to have come back from upstairs while everyone was figuring out where to put the cutting triangle and he now carries a sword. “THE BLADE” He points to the sharp, long blade “THE GUARD” he points to the rectangular guard “AND THE TANG” he points to the hilt…so it’s called a tang?

He rips off the leather binding around the hilt, revealing the so called tang; it’s quite literally the narrower and thicker part of the blade.

Ok, so I think I know how to do that? I peek at the cutting triangle, hmm that might work.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, GET ON TO IT” Once again, no proper instructions, it’s just a get on with it kind of thing…quite like my course…so I should be just fine.

“Who wants to go first?” I look at the group and Anoobis, although looking quite tired raises his hand.

“I can totally do this!” He sounds way too excited “But first we need to smelt the iron bars together to make one long iron bar”

Everyone raises their eyebrows for a second, but I do understand the concept I guess.

While Ravenna and I continue with the bloomery and iron ore, Anoobis and Neki melt the iron bars in the forge and start smacking them together to form a single rectangle.

Then, they flatten it out somewhat, making the bar longer.

“How long should a sword be?” He suddenly asks without looking up, but I’m guessing it’s directed towards Jarken.

“THE LENGTH OF YOUR ARM” He shouts out for everyone to hear. Good to know.

Heating and melding the small iron bars together a few more times, they finally get it to around the length of his arm, only taking only bars in the end, but that is 2 pieces of iron ore…

The iron is flattened to maybe an inch thick and 2 inches wide? I’m not exactly sure since I’m not right up close to it, but at least it relatively looks like the right size for a sword.

He places the edge onto the cutting triangle (after heating it up) and begins hammering down. We all watch it cut through the metal within a few hits, leaving a rough line.

Ooh, that’s cool!

He does the same for the other edge, making what looks decently like the end of the blade.

Holding up the piece of metal, pointed end to the sky, he changes his hold on the piece for a little bit, before seemingly finding a comfortable hold.

Cutting a notch just above his hold, he then cuts down for a little bit, heating up the iron for the other side, before cutting off the small excess.

With the tang complete, I guess, or so we all guess, he takes a smaller iron bar, heating and flattening it into a rectangular shape.

Placing the middle bit on the triangle, he taps the bright orange iron a few times creating a light cut.

He removes the cutting triangle, placing the cut line over the hole and the tang on top of the bright orange cut.

Tapping heavily on the top of the sword, the tang slices into the cut, opening it up and slowly sliding the tang through.

Heating what I’m guessing is the guard along with part of the tang before it fully cools, he continues tapping the tang through the guard.

He does this over and over again till finally the guard reaches the wider blade part and he lets it cool down.

“NOW FOR ALL OF YOUR WHO WANT TO BELIEVE YOU’VE MADE SOMETHING THAT ISN’T UTTER CRAP, BRING IT HERE AND LET ME USE IT. BUT DON’T WASTE MY TIME OR I WILL THROW YOU OUT”

We all look at the rough sword Anoobis made.

He bends it with quite some effort.

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..

.

“What, I didn’t think this was a good sword” He holds the bent sword guiltlessly as we stare; the point almost touches his hand…well it definitely wasn’t, but why?

“Why’d it do that?” Ravenna asks for all of us towards Anoobis, he just shrugs.

“I’m guessing it’s something to do with the iron’s strength, which is according to its purity. If we want to make a good weapon we need to make sure we get 100% purity or as high as”

“How?” Nekineki speaks up with a confused look.

“Jarken has told us how to purify the iron in two ways already; through smelting it and then through hammering the slag out-” Anoobis begins but is quickly taken over by Ravenna

“-Now what that means is that before we smelt it, we need to remove as many impurities from it to minimize the slag, then reheat the bloom over and over again till we’re sure there is no slag left” Ravenna finishes off, to which Anoobis approvingly nods, gosh those two are really in sync.

“So how much Iron ore do we need for one bar?” I ask

“5 PIECES OF IRON ORE SHOULD MAKE UP A SINGLE PURE BAR” Jarken comes from nowhere, shocking me out of my skin. Jesus Jarken!

Though thank you for the input.

I do wonder if everyone who hear him actually heard the question…but then again if they’re smart enough they should figure it out.

Ok, so guess plan, make some iron is in action….but we better be careful for there’s only 28 pieces of iron ore left…so that makes just above 5 iron bars? That’s enough for one mistake…

We better be verrry careful with this.

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Sorry it took a few days, I had to learn how to smith! so actually this is all pretty accurrate and not made up! (totally worth the time).

So part 2 will be out in like 5-10 minutes :D

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD