Beth had been doing her new routine for just over a week and was already exhausted. It seemed as though every single thing in Dom’s shop was broken, damaged or generally in disrepair. In fact she would swear Dom was breaking things on purpose though she had no evidence of that fact. It just felt like there wasn’t a single thing she hadn’t spent some time cleaning and then attempting to fix. Though fix was a strong word for re-slotting things back into place and occasionally reapplying glue.

Through it all she hadn’t seen a single customer. Not once had somebody other than herself walked through the door but Dom showed no sign of concern. In fact Beth had barely seen him the whole time she’d been around the shop floor. Instead he was always in what she assumed was the workshop at the back, only occasionally passing through at random moments throughout the day. He’d been true to his word though and hadn’t said a thing when Beth took a day off to rush through a couple of Trials. Something Beth was endlessly thankful of as though she suspected he knew something was up he hadn’t made her spell it out.

Dom had remained fairly aloof despite Beth’s status as his apprentice. She had slightly hoped he was going to be giving her hands on teaching. After all she had offered him two of her Trial periods and she didn’t know if her failure would result in her needing to give up another Trial or if the attempt was enough to fulfil the agreement. Well if she was honest with herself she was pretty sure she knew the answer to that but she would really rather not waste all her time here.

Dom didn’t watch her cleaning or fixing most of the time. One day he hadn’t even made an appearance just leaving her a list attached to the unlocked door with tasks for her to do. No customers came that day, like every other day which was fortunate as Beth had no idea of the pricing of the items. Nor did she fully understand how Dom was making enough to pay her. Something that was a necessity given her medical debts. But sure enough the week end and Dom handed her a small pile of coins. She felt rich for approximately half an hour before she handed it in to the doctor’s receptionist and her inn keeper to keep herself in food and board.

Breaking even was enough for Beth though, after all she was without full use of a leg so was firmly in the continue to survive camp. She could worry about things like profit or even luxuries after she was healed and wasn’t dealing with her debts. It was midway through her next week that she walked into the shop and was confident there was nothing more that could be done. Well at least nothing more she could do in any case. She’d reinforced the wobbly display cases. Well propped up might be more accurate, Using loose pieces of wood she’d found discarded behind the shop that she assumed could be used for such contact. Dom had noticed without comment so it had to be fine. All the display cases were spotless, having bee dusted and polished including the removal of a brown trail that seemed to criss cross some of the display cases and had each taken a good hour of elbow grease to remove. She’d even adjusted the displays slightly. She’d left those in the windows alone, after all they were clearly higher quality work and she didn’t want to risk damaging them. But the significantly worse jewellery in the cases around the inside of the shop she was more than happy enough to adjust; grouping by colour and design putting the ones she decided were nicer and better quality towards the front and hiding the most scruffy of the work towards the back. For all that it mattered given the complete and utter lack of customers in the shop.

This rearranging did give Beth some familiarity with Dom’s work and the fashions she assumed were common to the culture. Bracelets were by far the most common piece of jewellery. There were next to zero rings, outside of those in the window. Similarly he worked primarily with blue and green gems, often in combination. There were some bracelets in most other colours but they were by far the most common often with The metal that was most common was a bronze colour though it gleamed more than Beth ahd known was possible for such a metal.

It was also always cool to the touch. Even after Beth had held some of the pieces for a significant time polishing it aggressively it remained cool. Not cold but cool enough she imagined you’d always be aware of it when wearing. That wasn’t to say all the pieces in the shop were the result of metal work. Again it was by far the majority but there were some leather, cloth wood and even glass pieces, that Beth had done her best to group up.

Only one or two of the display cases contained jewellery with the enchanting star-like affect Beth had noticed in every piece in the window. Even those weren’t quite right though, the cut of the gem had paced the centralised sparkle off centre or even one which had the averse effect and looked almost like a black hole engulfing the light such that it’s shape was impossible to discern until Beth had hesitantly ran her finger over the gem itself feeling out it’s extremities.

This morning something was different though as Beth arrived. As always it was sun-up when she arrived with a pastry she was finishing off as she arrived. The inn she was staying at weren’t serving breakfast that early but did provide rolls at her request that were left out for her between the cook going to bed and her heading out. The shop was empty as was often the norm, so she had grabbed the broom for the closet at the back of the showroom. Next to the closet was the door that Beth had always assumed lead to Dom’s workshop. Normally it was closed with no sound coming from beyond it. This time however it was ajar and the slight sound of shuffling came from beyond.

Though Beth wasn’t willing to push her way in and enquire further she did peak through the small crack, hoping she wouldn’t end up staring right into the eyes of Dom. Beyond she could see an assortment of tools hung up on a wall, even from where she stood she could see they were very clean, in fact the floor beyond the door looked well maintained too, almost sparkling in it’s cleanliness, especially when compared to the state the shop had been in. The vague sounds she heard beyond the door got louder so Beth scurried away from the door not wishing to be caught. She quickly changed to focus on the morning sweeping. She attempted to continue to feel and flex her mana while she swept. The silence of the shop combined with the repetitive action leading Beth to believe she had a better chance than she would elsewhere. After all the routine sweeping was the same every time and always took at least an hour giving her a large opportunity to experiment. It was met with limited success but this was still indicative of huge growth for Beth so she was more than please with it. After all it wasn’t like she was in any particular rush.

Having finished her sweeping and quickly wiping down the display cases Beth headed towards the door ready to flip the sign and open the shop, for all that it mattered that It was actually open. But routine was routine. Her fingers had barely touched the sign when she felt a hand touching her own. She jumped slightly startled at the physical contact. It was obviously Dom though how he had gotten close enough to touch her without her noticing was quite the mystery.

“Beth don’t open up today it’s time for you to do some learning.” Came his voice from next to her, louder than she had heard previously.

She released the sign letting it flap back to the window in a closed configuration. Turning to face where the voice had come from she was confused to see nobody where she could have sworn Dom once was. At the back of the shop however the workshop door was slightly further ajar than it had been earlier. She took this as an invitation and stepped through the ajar door in the back pushing it closed behind her into her masters workshop. She hobbled across to where Dom was sitting and was relieved to see an empty chair next to him.

She still attempted to sit whenever possible as her foot continued to heal, putting weight on it caused her to feel a dull ache after too long. In front of Dom there was a small pile of stripes of the metal Beth recognised as matching that most commonly used in the jewellery in the shop. Dom was sat with his hands pressed to a single meter long strip of metal pressed to the table. The tremor in his hands still visible.

“The first thing you need to be able to do. Before worrying about anything creative or even actually making the jewellery is to cut everything to size.” Dom started his voice slow and monotone. He gestured at the stripes. “In time you will need to learn to identity the suitability of the ingots provided and their shaping but for now we will work with some of my previously shaped work.”

Beth looked again at the strips. They were fairly uniform in length but the texture of the stripes themselves as inconsistent with different peaks and troughs.

“First I’m going to teach you how to make a very basic bracelet. It’s once piece and more or less child’s play to make. In my hay day I could churn out tens of these a day and still have time to work on other projects. Not that I wasted my time with such things. I’ll expect 5 by the end of the day.”

Dom’s teaching style was very rocky, especially his expectations of Beth did not match the level of explanation he gave. He kept reaching outwards things as if to take them off Beth and demonstrate but then he’d pull his hands back and grasp them together, ass though physically restraining himself from interfering. First and foremost Beth needed to cut the metal strip down to size. Dom himself checked her measurements and several times insisted Beth measured again without given any real indication of if it was too long or two short. Having measured and properly marked the length out against the chart Dom had dug up Beth elected to make a loose fitting bracelet as they were slightly larger meaning if anything happened, which she doubted Dom would allow anyway, she could trim it down and minimise waste.

Having successfully measured the metal to the right length something she had to prove consistently before Dom was willing to give a sign of approval. Beth was trusted with a small metal saw which she used to cut down to size the strip. Being careful to cut it to the outside of the measurement. Dom again talked her through her how to sand down any excess. Again almost taking it to demonstrate but pulling back.

This ended up taking a good while due to how much Beth had overshot out of fear of having to go through the measuring all over again. Once the metal was finally at the desired length Beth needed to run it through a press that shaped it into a rectangle, leaving it with a square cross section. This action required a hand crank that Beth more than struggled with having to use her whole body weight to help get it going. This was an extremely strenuous task and Beth quickly found herself coated in sweat. Further it had to be fed through the machine several times as the first time through hadn’t been enough to fully smooth it out. By this point Beth took a break for lunch and was feeling increasingly worried about Dom’s desire for 5 to be completed by the end of the day.

Having gotten her piece to size and shape Beth had to twist the ends into a spiral going in opposite directions. This was to turn it into a ring rather than to rotate the rectangle. This Beth had assumed might require high heats to reshape the metal but all it actually required was some strong pliers and yet more elbow grease. These weren’t perfect curves but this wasn’t a repeatable task so instead Beth had to see it as a lesson learned and hope that she took the turn more smoothly on the next one. This time her actions had been delayed and as such the results were less than perfect.

Dom smiled as he instructed her in the final step. He handed her a large wooden mallet and a cylinder. Beth then had to strike the metal stripe against the cylinder repeatedly attempting to over it all evenl . This turned the strip into a bracelet. This wouldn’t undo the fact the ends weren’t lined up due to the last step but would make sure it was round and would fit on a wrist.

Again with this step Beth would repeatedly be sure she’d appropriately hammered the bracelet but Dom would take it up and hold it towards the light before shaking his head at her and passing it back. Eventually though she passed it across and got a small nod rather than the small head shake she had received up till that point. He then slid the bracelet off the cylinder where it was well and truly wedged. He then turned and exiting the workshop reminding Beth he expected 4 more and leaving her to her own devices to complete her task.