Magical After: Dark World Book 1 Part 1

by David Gunter

  With no more questions forthcoming, he realized that he needed to bring the soldiers to the job site in an orderly fashion, and he was sure he didn’t know how to get soldiers to march in any particular direction, so he did what would anyone would do. He got someone else to do it.

  “Hey WhoDadi5O, since you clearly have a sense of things, why don’t you get these men to the site we were at earlier so we can begin the work?” David said it as a question, but it had clearly been received as instruction, and to his surprise, WhoDadi5O went to work straight away. And so, with a smile on his face, he followed from a distance observing how WhoDadi5O put the group to a march and then watched in amusement as the soldier struggled to keep the men organized and headed in the right direction.

  In about thirty minutes, they had arrived at the site, and he then pointed out where the digging would begin and what to expect.

  “All right! Let’s begin by organizing into three groups of four or five and start digging on this side of the building”. David said this, pointing to the location along the wall of the flooded building closest to their location. “Take ten minutes between each group digging up as much dirt as possible, and when two feet worth of water has risen up, stop digging and begin widening the hole until a group of four can fit in the hole. After this…” David was interrupted by a soldier raising his hand. He was surprised to see that one of the soldiers and not one of the three travelers was the one to raise their hand. Briefly, he didn’t believe what he was seeing and thought that perhaps, the man was simply trying to do calisthenics before the work, but the awkwardness of the moment broke him out of his puzzlement and into realization.

  “Yes? You have a question, soldier?” David, slightly surprised, asked.

  “Yes, Sir. What are minutes, and what are feet?” The man lowered his hand and looked to the others around him, wondering perhaps if he was the only one that didn’t know what these terms meant.

  “Oh boy!” David said involuntarily. “I see we may have a little bit of challenge with ideas of time and measurement. Good to know”. David paused to scratch his chin and tried to think of the best way to get started and delay solving this serious gap in communication. He decided to try a simpler approach.

  “All right, let’s do this another way. Each group of four or five needs to dig up fifty shovels worth of dirt before handing it to the next team. Also, when the water reaches your knees, that’s when I want you to widen the hole. Please tell me you have shovels or know where to get them?” He looked at them, wondering if he would first have to invent the concept of a shovel and was disappointed to see the same blank stares and confused looks in most of the men except for the three travelers who at this point were attempting to hold back laughter and were struggling to do so.

  David put his hand to his head in frustration. “Oh, Hellen! You gave this world beautiful skies, vast mountain ranges, and forests as far as the eye can see but no basic tools? I’ve clearly got my work cut out for me.” He looked down at the ground and started thinking through the basics of any civilization. An idea came to him.

  “OK, so how did this city build the walls that I see all around us?” David looked at the vast walls and back at the men.

  “Well, the builders guild took care of most of the work, but we heard they used various hammers and pikes to dig up the earth and cut the stones. The builders guild live in the southwestern mountains. The city pays them tribute every year from all the grain and food we collect, and a large measure of the blue opal our lands has plenty of.” the soldier that had asked the question offered as an answer.

  So the city outsourced the majority of the work, where crafting and building were concerned. So what he had determined to undertake and what had undoubtedly enticed Francis was the idea of bringing the skills and talent of the people of the land up to the level where the city could be self-sufficient. The undertaking would be bigger than what he would’ve imagined at first, but the benefit to the city would certainly give him a huge bargaining chip he could capitalize on.

  It was clear that the thought had crossed the travelers as all three of them looked at him and smiled, and RamenBaby added aloud, “Cha-ching!”

  David couldn’t help but smile at the other travelers and then added. “Well, guys, it looks like earning rep with yours-truly has just become the most valuable commodity in this city and maybe the world.”

  At his statement, a few of the soldiers looked at him with a sudden realization and then sudden admiration at the ambition he had revealed. Others who looked at him puzzling and not exactly understanding what was on his mind later that day were filled in by the rest, and by the end of that day, the group had a topic of discussion which would last them the weeks and months that followed.

  David then instructed them to bring whatever digging tools they could find and then left them digging while he went to find the blacksmith’s shop and attempt to build a few much-needed items for this project and the projects that would undoubtedly come in the weeks that followed. On the directions of the soldiers, he headed directly towards the center of the city and the little shop that had a hammer and sword symbol hanging above the shop entrance.

  He observed, as he entered through the open doorway, the crude and archaic tools and weapons that hung and lay in the store window and the complete absence of patrons that the store possessed. Coming in, he was soon addressed by a short, stout man who almost barked at him in doing so.

  “Hey there! Hold up! What business do you have in here?” The little but tough man said.

  “Oh! Hello?” David attempted to change the tone of the introductions. “I’m here upon request of City Planner Francis. I was asked to prove my skills at the forge.”

  “Oh, you’re one of those useless fools. Listen here; you can run back to that useless excuse of a creature pretending to be a city planner and tell him you failed. Your predecessors have ruined the forge with their experiments, and I am going to have to close the shop thanks to their tinkering.” The short man paused for a moment to consider something, then continued his tirade. “I have half a mind to make you clean up the mess they made in the shop before I kick you out but, knowing your kind, you’d probably leave an even larger mess. Go on! Get out of here!”

  The little man grabbed David’s arm and started dragging him back towards the open door. David wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at the rugged little man, but the man had a strength in his hands that was entirely unexpected. It felt, to him, that a steel hand had a firm hold on his left arm biceps and wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t think of anything he could do to prevent getting thrown out of the shop, so he did the only thing he could think of.

  David grabbed the man’s hand and pulled the man towards him and in the direction he had been pushing David. Then David rolled back on the floor and, pulling the shorter man down with him, used his feet to push the man over him and then finished the move by launching the shorter man into the air and out the front door. The man flew with a loud shout and landed with a thud on the floor outside the shop.

  David rolled over on his side and quickly stood up and turned to see what had become of the shorter man. He saw the man lying on the floor outside the shop, looking up at the sky. The man coughed a few times and then, moaning and vocalizing grunts of pain, slowly made his way back to a standing position. The man turned to look at David and stood in the street giving David the most honest look of wounded pride he’d ever seen, and he knew that nothing good would happen after the wounded pride was replaced with the anger that was certain to come.

  David felt pure resolve enter his mind as he braced himself, lifted his hands into the tightest fists he’d ever made, and said, “Well c’mon then if you want a little taste of a real smith’s iron.”

  The shorter man suddenly and visibly broke out of his state of mind and looked at David with surprise. A moment later, a smile appeared where just moments before only a wounded pride had be
en, and another moment later, the man laughed hard and slapped his knees. “Hahaha.”

  The man then said, through the laughter, “Well, you may [laugh] be a smith after all. At least you have the metal it takes to be one [laugh].”

  The shorter man walked up to David, who had visibly relaxed at seeing the change in the shorter man. He then waved for him to follow as he passed by the taller man and said, “Well, you should at least see the mess that the other two fools left for you to clean up. We’ll see if you still feel up to it after.”

  David followed the shorter man into a backyard courtyard that had cobblestone flooring and a number of stone and wood tables, and several different sized furnaces against three of the walls. The room was in terrible shape, with metal ingots all over the floor and tools are thrown about everywhere. There also were scorched marks on the tables and deep gouges on many of the objects. The floor was also riddled with metal dust and wood chips, and David really couldn’t tell what had been attempted in this room from all the mess.

  Then, from the doorway of the courtyard, he spotted it. It was the saddest and most abused-looking anvil he’d seen in a long time. David was moved. “Oh, no! What have they done to you, my friend!” He had moved from the doorway to the anvil, without realizing it, and then he had put his hand gently on the battered and broken anvil as if he was touching a hurt animal that was wounded and in pain. “Now, now, it’s going to be all right. We’ll get you patched up, and you’ll be working right in no time. You’ve got many of years of life still in ya, OK?” David had gone too many years without touching his favorite tools and, pretty soon and without looking at the shorter man, started talking to all the tools as he picked them up and put them in their proper place. He arranged everything as if he were planning a number of projects in his mind and looking for the most optimal configuration for each, based on the size and makeup of each furnace in the room.

  The shorter man stood in the doorway and, unbeknownst to David, was giving him the nod of approval that only a fellow blacksmith could give. The man quietly walked away, seeing that David had simply gone from cleaning the place to its former immaculate state to working on the broken anvil.

  The shorter man came back over the course of the four hours that passed and watched as David went from fixing the anvil to creating many molds for what looked to be tubing of some sort. Then he came back a few hours later and saw, in astonishment, that David had not only created steel bars but had also created pipes made of steel and other strange tools that piqued his curiosity. As the shorter man remained watching David, he saw a skill he hadn’t seen in a long time or perhaps ever. David simply did what he wanted, and it came out perfectly, with precision and detail.

  After another hour had passed, David breathed out a sigh and looked up from his work and saw the shorter man simply staring in awe at every single item he had produced.

  The shorter man broke the silence first. “This is a miracle; no, it’s a marvel. Most blacksmiths can make four of five items really well. You have created over thirty different types of pipes in all sizes and with numerous types of joints. You’ve also created numerous different smithing hammers, some with iron heads, others with stone heads, and even others with soft heads. I have no idea what material you created for the soft heads.” Without slowing his description of the work, he went on. “You’ve even created some weapons. Oh, my!” He exclaimed this last statement as he saw a small sword and a larger sword at the end of one of the tables. “You are a real master, Sir! You have created all of these items out of the molds I see all about?”

  David answered the man in a kind of state of exhaustion but calmly. “Yup, that pretty much sums it up. I wouldn’t say I’m a master, though. I’m years out of practice. I guess these things just came to me and made sense since I’m going to be rebuilding the cities plumbing and setting up running water.”

  The shorter man just stared at David and was speechless. After what seemed like an eternity, the man said, “You are rebuilding the cities plumbing and setting up running water for the entire city?”

  “Yup” is all that David said.

  “Well, I, never!” is all the shorter man could say.

  Then he stretched out his hand and said, “My name is Gwarm, Stone Thrower, of the Broken Stone dwarf clan. My friends just call me Gwarm. It would be an honor to work with you in this establishment. I had hoped to meet another dwarf with your skills and make a name for ourselves among these people but, after all these years of waiting, I’d started to lose hope. The dwarf clans decided that I would be assigned to this post as an ambassador between the Opal and Dwarven kingdoms, so I’ve been stuck here without a chance to grow my skills for far too long. Sir, it would be an honor to work with a master like you. Oh, but where are my manners. I don’t mean to presume, but it’s been so long, Sir.”

  David could sympathize with the Dwarf, and he was happy to meet someone who shared his love of the smithing craft. What made up his mind about the Dwarf was simply the open and honest way in which the man behaved. Things seemed straightforward and simple.

  “Tell you what,” David said, “if you help me get settled here in this new city and give me the lay of the land, you know, show me how things work and stuff, I’ll show you how to make anything you want to make.”

  “Oh, Sir! That is the greatest gift one crafter can give to another. I would be honored to help out in any way that I can. Is there anything that you would like to know at this time?”

  Gwarm was a changed dwarf from the one David had met just a few hours before. He was tempted to ask a whole number of questions, but he wasn’t one to abuse a friendship and one which was only just started. So he shook his head and said, “Well, at this time, I only need a way to take these pipe samples to Francis so he can get an estimate of my abilities and hand these buckets, shovels, pikes, and drilling tools to the men working on the flooded levels of the mage’s quarters.” David looked at the Dwarf, waiting to see if Gwarm might have a solution to this problem, but the shorter man just gave him the most quizzical look.

  “Sir! Let me see if I understand you. You want to show Francis, the city planner, these finely crafted items so that you can get his approval? You are also thinking of giving a bunch of soldiers these finely crafted tools, so they can work on the mage’s sewage problem?” The Dwarf fixed David with the most honest looking and serious face he could muster and just waited for David’s response.

  “Uh, well ya” is all that David could say.

  The Dwarf exploded in laughter, and it looked as if he’d fall over, and die, from the honesty of David’s response.

  David was confused and attempted to speak over the Dwarf’s mirth. “I don’t understand what I’ve said or done, my good dwarf,” he said as the man continued to laugh. This, however, only made the dwarf laugh harder, and it took the Dwarf every bit of effort to bring himself back to a functional level.

  “Oh, sir!” The Dwarf said after he’d calmed some more. “You fail to see the gravity of my station. I’m the ambassador to the Dwarven Kingdom, and I have the ear of the Emperor himself. If I say you’re a chicken that lays eggs, you’ll be in the hen house tonight. Of course, since you’re not a chicken that lays eggs, you won’t be spending the night in the hen house. No, no, Sir! What you are is a master blacksmith, a master builder, and a decent weapons smith, to boot. You, Sir, are coming with me at this very moment.” At this, Gwarm waved for David to follow, and then David was following the Dwarf out of the shop and noted that they seemed to be headed towards the castle at the center of the city.

  They had taken but a few steps away from the shop, however, when David heard the metallic sound of armor and the fast-approaching footsteps of a soldier behind them. He turned to look, and a soldier called out for their attention.

  “Ahoy, David sir!” The soldier shouted from a distance.

  Gwarm and David paused and waited for the soldier to reach them a
nd continued waiting as the soldier paused to catch his breath.

  “Sir,” the soldier began quickly bowing towards Gwarm and then turned to David, “The hole has been dug, and we started trying to widen it as you asked, but the ground around the building is full of stones, and we fear the work could take us late into the night. We were hoping you might have made progress with the tools you mentioned earlier?” The soldier seemed quite hopeful and also exhausted. Judging from the man’s muddy feet and hands, the soldiers had certainly put in the effort, as best as they could, David was relieved to see.

  David was about to reply when the Dwarf spoke up first. “Oh, he’s done more than creating a few tools but tools he definitely has created. Head inside the shop and into the interior courtyard. There will be a number of tools, and buckets, which you’re welcome to take, that is if it’s agreeable to Sir David, our new master blacksmith.” The Dwarf turned to await David’s final word.

  David was taken aback a bit by the change of things and the apparent station he was being addressed with. He saw, too, that the soldier was equally surprised by the respect and admiration in the Dwarf’s words, so it took him a moment to adjust.