Benvari Mountains (Emerilia Book 2)

by Michael Chatfield

  That more than anything made Durn look scared as Jesal started to mutter to herself and looked over the armor again.

  Dave pulled on his shirt again, waiting a few minutes.

  “Jesal,” Durn said.

  “What?” she asked, going back to muttering. “Those layers—might need some alterations. Maybe his own forging techniques might help him. If not, need to get Horkum to mess with it. Horkum would ruin this little beauty.”

  “Will you take me on?” Dave asked, trying to disturb her muttering.

  “Huh? Oh, you’re still here? Well, yeah, I’ll take you on. Even with your limited understanding, you went to the damned limits, boyo. Never thought of anything like this in all my years. No wonder Kol was going nut-bag about making you a Dwarven smith. This thing is—well, fuck, it might be better than some of the sex I’ve had.” Jesal looked up to the ceiling as Durn held his head in his hands, shaking it.

  “Nope, take that back—better than most of the sex I’ve had.” She nodded as if agreeing with the statement and stroked the armor.

  “Can I get that back?” Dave pointed to it.

  Jesal turned it away from him, waging an inner battle before turning back and giving it to him. “Okay, well, I’ll teach you how to really forge. Then you’re telling me about how you made that damned thing. I’ve seen a few Legendary weapons, but that is clearly one of them. Damned thing is a piece of art—want to mount it to my wall!” Jesal laughed.

  “Uhh, thanks?” Dave said.

  “So, we’ll work together. First, we meet in here, talk about what we’ve figured out, and I give you some goals. We go into the smithy and you work your heart out. At the end of the day, we come back here, talk about it all and then go our separate ways. Room and board will be provided to you for your stay. Got any questions?” Jesal thundered on.

  “Uhh, well, I have a few friends who are here. I was wondering what I could do for them,” Dave said.

  “We could get them a place within the keep, but while you’re here, I don’t want you distracted. Focus on training. I don’t know how long it might take.” Jesal’s voice became serious.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Very well. Go tell them about it and get ready for tomorrow. Be here at the fifth bell. We’ll begin early and work through the day. Tomorrow your true training to be called a Dwarven Master Smith starts.”

  Quest: Of Anvil and Fire

  After meeting with Jesal, she has decided to accept you as a candidate to be a Dwarven Master Smith.

  You will need to:

  Master the material Stone

  Master the material Malachite

  Master the material Gold

  Master the material Mithril

  Find your Smithing Art

  Reward: Title of Dwarven Master Smith

  Do you accept?

  Y/N

  Chapter 20: Path of a Dwarven Smith

  Deia watched Dave as he stood up from the bed, moving to the bathtub to wash himself. She pulled the sheets around her, making a dress out of them as she traced the tattoos that covered his back.

  He now stood at around six-foot tall, just a half foot shorter than her, but nearly twice as wide. His dense muscles rippled as he cleaned his face and chest. Deia rubbed his back and he turned around.

  “I’ll be back soon enough,” he reassured her.

  “I know, and I understand it. Just, my damned emotions are getting the best of me.” Deia gave him a small smile.

  Dave smiled, pulling her close to him, and kissed her.

  It was over too soon as he pulled on his different clothes and grabbed his bag of holding. His armor was stored in the bag; now, he just wore simple but hardy clothes.

  “Hurry up becoming a Dwarven smith. When you come out, we’re going to need to make up for your lack of training for Agility,” Deia said.

  “Training, training, training,” Dave complained.

  Deia silenced him with a kiss.

  He grinned. “I look forward to learning from you, master.” He bowed his head and gave her a sweeping bow.

  Deia laughed and shook her head.

  “Thank you for letting me do this.” Dave’s arms wrapped around her.

  “I’m old enough that I know that it is better to let you do the things that you want to than try to hold you back.” She pouted and looked up at him. “Though I can’t help but wish I did.”

  Dave laughed. “Well, thank you for supporting me. If you ever want to go off and train with some master on some remote mountaintop, let me know.”

  Deia snorted. “I think Induca will be able to teach me a good number of things. Mixing her teachings with what I’m learning from Earth, you might see a whole new kind of magic by the time you see me again.”

  “I look forward to it, my smart, brilliant, and pretty firecracker.”

  She rolled her eyes again, kissing him. “Now get out of here, and hurry back to me!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dave turned and walked out of the door, turning back. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” Her emotions wanted to grab him and hold him back, but she knew that as she wouldn’t want him to do that to her, she didn’t do it to him.

  His smile made her blush and feel butterflies in her stomach before the door closed behind him and he was gone.

  Deia sat on the bed, trying to get her emotions under control. She moved to the bathroom, where there was a thing called a “shower.” Dave had jumped into it as soon as he saw it. It had led to him pulling her into it.

  A smile passed over her face as she opened the valve for the warm water. She showered, thinking of her own goals. As Dave was working on his smithing, she and the others would work on their various skills. Already, Malsour had talked to a few Dwarves about growing his skills with his Dark Affinity. Deia and Induca were going to train with each other at an outside training ground that the Dwarves ran. Suzy and Anna would work on Suzy’s summoning. Deia had also mandated that they get together in the afternoons and work on their melee fighting techniques.

  Deia was wondering what kind of damage they would be capable of once they left the mountain. Boran-al’s Citadel had served to show her just how weak she was. She might be over three hundred years old, but she had been happy with her skills, thinking of herself highly. The time that she had spent with the Stone Raiders showed her that she needed to improve in all aspects.

  Even Malsour seemed to grab this concept as he was throwing himself into learning how to fight. He was a decently high level and he knew a lot of information, but he had never put that information to use, so Emerilia had not rewarded him with higher stats. Now he was applying those theories.

  Armed with the knowledge of the Emerilia forums, both Suzy and Deia were becoming founts of knowledge to improve the others’ skills.

  While Dave was working on becoming a Dwarven Master Smith, the rest could finally take their ideas and test them out. Before Boran-al’s Citadel, they had only been testing out different ideas that might give them an edge in that fight. Now, well, they had no pressing concerns so they were free to experiment.

  Next time those Affinity lords and ladies show up, they better damned well watch out.

  ***

  Dave walked into the classroom.

  “All right, get your kit on and store your bag in that locker there.” Jesal pointed to a bunch of lockers. Dave equipped his smithing gear and Jesal led him out to the smithy.

  “Okay, so first of all, we’re going to need to get you up to speed on gold and stone. First we’ll work with stone.” Jesal pointed to a big piece of stone that was sitting on a workbench at the side of the smithy. “Turn that into something.”

  “Anything in particular?” Dave asked.

  “Whatever comes to your mind.”

  Dave nodded and walked over to the stone. He used his sense, closing his eyes and passing his hand over the stone. It wasn’t like metals; veins ran through the rock. It would be hard to form something from the block with hammering
; it would just crack and break.

  Going to have to carve the damned thing out.

  Dave grabbed a piece of sharpened coal and worked on a piece of paper, making a simple sketch of what he wanted to make. He opened his Internet browser, checking out different images and practices that people used to shape stone.

  This is going to be interesting. He continued to browse. People went for lunch; he just ate a snack bar he’d made.

  ***

  Jesal was impressed. Dave was taking his time to plan out what he wanted to make. Most people felt as if they had to prove themselves right away. This was only increased if someone got to this stage and didn’t know how to use all of the materials.

  Malachite was a normal one to not know. Only the Elves on the Ashal Islands knew how to make the best malachite weapons and they weren’t telling anyone their secrets.

  The Dwarves were good with it, but they couldn’t create the flowing creations that the Elves were able to make. Their malachite was prized around the world in the halls of kings and the richest of nobles.

  Every smith knew how to carve stone and gold was necessary to add flair to many different pieces, and it was a great conductor of Mana.

  Though why that boy used silver instead of gold on his armor interests me. It might be worth trying out a few experiments of my own. I should ask him after today’s work.

  Jesal’s mind was off somewhere else as she walked into the shop again.

  Dave was hammering away at his block of stone.

  Jesal looked over, trying to not distract. She snorted, looking at his face. Seems that this one also knows how to get into his smithing fugue. She smiled.

  A smithing fugue to Dwarves was as close as smiths got to meditation unless they were mages as well. It was when a Dwarf was so in tune with their work that everything else seemed to fade away. It was just them and their work. People who were in a fugue were rarely interrupted, the others knowing that they were deep into their work.

  She looked at his work, knowing that he didn’t even care she was there.

  He had various pieces clamped down, a half-dozen arrowheads to the side. They had a gleam to them.

  She picked one up. It nicked her tough skin. “Damn.” A normal smith might have thought that they were formed with Earth or Dark magic but she knew that Earth and Dark magic left a certain residue on their works and they weren’t as strong as items that had been made in a smithy.

  She looked at the work table. A piece of parchment appeared in Dave’s hands and he used it to rub back and forth on the knife he was making. The parchment had a rough look to it as the roughly carved knife was smoothed out.

  Jesal studied the arrowhead again and placed it back down.

  Impressive. Kol was right about how he mixes techniques from his land with our own. I’ve never seen anything like that rough parchment. Using a file might make the stone crack and break but using this applies less pressure and friction, allowing for a finer finish without the strain of a file. I wonder if it would work well on smoothing out other items?

  Jesal moved back to her work. She didn’t feel as if it would take long for Dave to attain his stone ring on his necklace.

  ***

  With Dave already attaining the first rank of Master Smith, he had worked with different materials, many of them a lot more difficult to form and change, as those higher materials needed strength and power of will. Stone needed a person to understand the material that they were working with and understand that they could only cut once. It was the easiest material to form, but it was also the most challenging.

  If he didn’t use the right chisel, hit the wrong place, or used too much force, then he would ruin what he was working on. He’d made the arrowheads as practice. It was hard to make the bottom without cracking the stone.

  He’d broken ten or so arrowheads just because of that.

  After he’d made a half-dozen or so, he’d gotten used to the material. He’d started understanding the faults in the stone. They were harder to find as it was a more organic material than metal. Still, he worked through.

  He stopped, realizing that he was tired. He stood and rubbed his eyes, cracking his back that was strained from leaning over to study his work.

  “Was wondering when you might come out of your fugue. Let’s go grab a beer and have a talk. You’ve got all week to work on that stone,” Jesal said.

  “Sure.” Dave put his tools away and cleaned his area.

  Jesal led him toward an elevator. They rode it upward to the more inhabited sections of the mountain. “You don’t seem at all alarmed by our lifts.”

  “Well, we have something similar back on Earth, not all that different. We just use electricity instead of magma tunnels to power ours.”

  “Electricity?”

  “Think of it as a poor man’s magic.” The mixture of mental fatigue from working hard for nearly a day straight and the strain of working in the smithy made Dave think of Earth.

  He felt proud. He knew that he was probably some kind of test-tube creation but he was proud of his race. They had done so many interesting and great things. They’d come out and challenged a massive power in the universe.

  They’d built machines that he couldn’t even comprehend and they’d survived and thrived on a planet that was meant to train them to fight aggressive species that the most powerful empire in the known universe didn’t want to deal with.

  At times, we might be a bunch of idiots, but together, not even the most powerful empire in the universe was able to completely wipe us out.

  Dave’s thoughts returned to what was around him as he realized that they had walked through a few streets and now found themselves at a tavern.

  Jesal walked through the door. Laughter, the sound of drinks coming together, conversation, and a band working away registered in the background.

  Dave looked at the two-storied tavern. Dwarves were everywhere and anywhere; waiters and waitresses moved through tables, picking up empties and dropping off food and new drinks.

  It was a brisk business.

  Jesal took a table with Dave and ordered by catching a waiter’s eye and holding up two fingers.

  The waiter nodded and disappeared.

  “So, it seems that you’re getting the hang of stone working.”

  “It takes longer to work with, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy enough.” Dave shrugged.

  “I saw that you were using some kind of parchment on the blade to sharpen it instead of using files.”

  “Sandpaper?” Dave watched Jesal’s confused look. “Guess you don’t have it here. It’s like a tough sheet with sand on it to grind down burrs and expose the material underneath. Takes a hell of a lot of work without a sander but gives a better edge and shine to a piece.”

  “Where did you get it from?”

  “Oh, I uhh, made it,” Dave said, not wanting to admit that he had just conjured it. Need to be more careful about what I make.

  “Does it work on metals?”

  “Yes, but you need to make one that is more durable.”

  Jesal looked to be caught in thought as the waiter returned with two meals and tankards of ale. “Thanks, Sean,” Jesal said.

  “No worries, Jesal.” Sean grinned and left quickly to deal with other tables.

  “So, why didn’t you learn to work with gold?”

  Dave took a bite of the meat pie that was in front of him. Gravy and juices poured out as he took a big bite. He chewed his food, savoring it and thinking of the question.

  “Damn, that’s good.” Dave took a drink.

  Jesal nodded in pride, also digging into her meal.

  “Well, I didn’t really need it. Sure, it looks pretty but it doesn’t have much more use.”

  “It’s the strongest conductor of power, though.”

  “Actually, that’s wrong.” Dave grimaced.

  “What?” Jesal drank from her tankard.

  “Many people, even on Earth, thought that gold was the bes
t conductor. In reality, silver is better. Gold is useful in certain circuits, yes, but it’s thirty percent or so weaker than silver at conducting energy.”

  “I’m going to have to check that out.” Jesal dove back into her meat pie again.

  Dave smiled and dug into his pie as well. He knew that tomorrow would come soon and he still had a lot of work to do with carving out the stone weapons. It was tedious work and easy to screw up, but he hoped to finish off his last three materials quickly and get onto working with Mithril.

  Chapter 21: Stone Work

  Dave rubbed his eyes. It had been a week and a half since he had stepped into the forge to start learning. After the fourth day, Jesal had given him a block of rock and told him to make something to display his talents.

  “So, what is it?” Jesal looked at what looked to be an octagon with magical runes sorted into circuits around its surface.

  “Well, I don’t know what you would call it but I’m going to call it a core,” Dave said.

  “A core?”

  Even Gorrund, the other Master Smith who came around every so often and was teaching four other apprentices, stared at it in curiosity. “What does it do?” Gorrund asked, his voice gruff.

  “Well, my friend is a summoner. She is working on her creator class right now. When I saw this rock, I couldn’t help but think of the really creepy-ass creatures that she’d been making with her magic. When I left her, she was rather weak, but with time she will grow. As I watched her making her creatures, I realized that if the thing she creates is stronger, then she won’t need as much Mana to make something that works. Then, I moved into how about if she just stored Mana inside her creations to keep it going. You’d need some kind of container that could hold a lot of power, then make a decent creature that didn’t make me think of some B-class horror movie and needs to have the ability to be turned on and off. Oh, and it needed to be connected to the element she is creating them from.”