“I’m going to check again,” April said, pushing to her feet and grabbing the tongs.
I gratefully hopped off the bellows-bike and picked up and slipped on a pair of big fire-resistant gloves, then followed her. I took the brick we were using as a door in both hands and lifted it easily out of the way, opening a portal into a miniature version of hell. The furnace blasted my face with heat, and I winced but held my ground.
April approached from beside me and gingerly extended the tongs into the furnace. When she was sure she had a good grip, she pulled the crucible out and we eagerly peered inside, only to be met with more disappointment. The lump of squiron was happily glowing and very much not a liquid.
“Fuck,” April swore, and after a moment, she placed the crucible onto the ground. “I’m just going to see if we can work it into shape, since we’re clearly not going to get this damn furnace hot enough.”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, raising a hand. “Maybe we need to do this in a… less mundane fashion.”
She gave me a look. “What does that mean?”
“Well… your class is metalworker, right? Do you have any abilities or whatever?”
“Nope. I have my attributes and that’s kind of it…”
I blew out a long breath and considered our options. Then, I had an idea. “Hey Cynath, are you there?”
“I am here. What do you need?” Cynath’s voice was muted, as though she were speaking softly through a layer of cloth.
April’s eyes flew wide, but she kept her silence while I asked, “Why don’t I or April have abilities for our crafting classes?”
Cynath’s voice got closer, louder. "One moment, sweet Kaia.”
Kaia? April mouthed.
“It’s the name she chose for herself,” Cynath said, snitching on me.
"Hey! You're not meant to say that! It's personal!" I complained, looking up to pout and glare at the moon.
"Oh! Apologies!" She said, sound actually sincere. "I'm rather distracted. You see, I have a bet going with Venus about… well, that's spoilers, but she's very adamant that my prediction will be naught but wind. Which is, of course, preposterous. This is very clearly my domain, and—"
I cleared my throat pointedly.
"Right. Yes. Anyway… classes… creative classes with no skills… oh, my! It would appear something is—" she said, sounding more and more surprised as she spoke. "Goodness me, what an oversight. I'll need to let the others know— oh, what a show off! Of course he'd resort immediately to percussive maintenance! Bloody typical. Well, it appears that the little wrinkle in the laws of reality have been corrected… oh! I have to choose now? My goodness, this is strange."
What in the ever loving fuck was going on up in god-town?
"Huh… whatever just happened, I have choices in my crafting class now," April murmured.
Oh, did that mean… yup! I had choices! Let's see…
Floating in my mind's eye were several potential abilities, but I could feel only two mana containers onto which I could imprint the abilities. My choices were difficult to discern at first, requiring concentration to figure out.
The first one that caught my eye was a sort of guided cut, where my mana would help my next slice with a knife to go exactly as I intended it. Then I saw the one that would give me an innate sense of the stress a part was under, and I immediately picked it. It was such a busted ability! Holy moly!
Still, I had one more to choose, and so many options…
Oh. Interesting. There was one here that would help me figure out how to get around a problem. It seemed that if I was stuck while I was trying to build something, it would give me a vague hint, like highlighting an object or whatever. It sounded really boring on paper, but I could see a million ways it would help. That was the one I picked as my second ability.
The other options promptly faded away, and I was left staring at April while Cynath radio babbled in the background.
"No, no, you're an absolute barbarian… Of course it worked, but it very easily might not have… I swear by the— don't you walk away from me!"
The irate goddess' voice trailed off into silence, and into that silence, April began to laugh. "Dude, what the fuck was that? You just called your patron deity up on the phone and got one half of a fuckin' lover's spat or some shit. Oh and it sounds like one of the other gods kicked reality until it gave us our abilities. The universe has gone fully certifiable, god damn!"
"Oh, I know," I said, shaking my head wearily. "Cynath is… it doesn't matter. What abilities did you pick?"
As if I hit a switch on a certain kind of toy, April began to vibrate with glee. "Watch this!"
No sooner had she spoken than she shoved her hand into the furnace without a glove. Stunned, I started to leap to her rescue, but she withdrew her hand again, holding a glowing ember between forefinger and thumb.
"Fire resistant hands!" She exclaimed triumphantly. Then she grinned even further. "Oh, and this!"
She slapped the hand with the ember onto the side of the furnace, and a wave of heat hit me like the sun itself was giving me a hug.
After making sure I still had my eyebrows, I couldn't help but match her excitement. "Problem solved! Let's get the crucible back into the furnace!"
Matching my glee, she grabbed the still boiling hot crucible in both hands and shoved it back into the fire. When her hands came out, they were free of burns again. We both stared at them for several seconds, then shared a look of wonder.
"I have to channel magic when I want it to work," she hedged. "But…"
"But it’s still damn cool."
"Hell yes it is!" She said, and slapped the brick-door back into place. "Time to really heat this baby up!"
Without any further encouragement, I jumped back on the bike and began to pedal with all my might. April knelt beside the furnace and placed both hands against it. The heat of the furnace jumped instantly, growing so hot that I could feel the difference from almost a metre away.
Five minutes later I was covered in sweat, and April was drained of mana. We figured it was time to try again with the pour though, and opened the furnace to take a look.
She used the tongs to grab the crucible this time, and when we peered inside, we were rewarded by the sight of brightly glowing molten squiron. Wasting approximately zero seconds, April began to pour molten metal down into the mould. It sizzled and bubbled for several seconds until there was nothing left in the crucible. We’d have to let it cool down and then hammer the dagger blanks into proper shape and grind an edge on them, but eventually we’d have some weapons.
Although, I was dreading trying to figure out how to make proper reusable moulds with the tools and materials on hand. It would need to be done in the end, because only a crazy person would try to outfit a small army like ours by lovingly hand crafting each dagger. Nah, we were going to cast that shit, bash it, and grind it until it was good enough to do the job.
"Nice! Get me some of the ingot moulds," April demanded after a moment. "They should be on the same trolley that had the anvil. I want to melt down a bunch more of this stuff while the furnace is running hot enough to melt it."
Without argument, I turned and rushed back into the workshop. Charles and the other worker were busy having a confused conversation about their new ability choices, but I didn't stop to help. Charles gave me a super weird look when I walked past, but otherwise didn’t comment. I didn’t expect him to do a complete one eighty on his views after April’s little speech earlier, but it at least did the trick of getting him off my back.
Grabbing four ingot moulds and enough squiron scraps to fill them, I skipped back out where April was waiting with a still warm crucible.
While she held it, I began to drop chunks of metal down into it, then back into the furnace it went. Meanwhile, I lined all the moulds up on the table and then took my place back on the bike.
Together, we churned out ten ingots of squiron before I began to beg for a longer rest. My poor legs were dying from the constant cycling, and I think April was missing chunks of her eyebrows from the heat.
Still, it was so satisfying to get it to work, and we shared a high five. As we did so, angry shouting burst out over the courtyard. From the side door to the gymnasium came a stream of people, many of whom looked ready to throw hands.
Backing away from them were two firefighters, the Captain and the squad leader from earlier today.
"Look at them," one man said, throwing an accusatory finger in our direction. "My wife is dead and they are having fun."
"Nobody is having fun, Mr Wilcolm," the Captain said placatingly. "Everyone is taking this situation very seriously, and we are deeply saddened by the death of everyone's loved ones."
"Really? Really?" A woman cried. "Hell has literally come to claim the world! It's the end! It's the rapture and we were left behind! It's over!"
"Now now," the squad leader called. "Mrs Kellan, please!"
"Don't you please me, Derek!" She hissed, stabbing him in the chest with a finger. "What can you possibly do for us now anyway? We might as well walk out into the night and let the demons have us!"
The crowd quivered as people added their nonsensical additions, and I instinctively took a step closer to April. They were so angry—teetering on the brink of violence. Red faces and wild gestures were everywhere, and so were the feelings of the crowd. Half of the things they were shouting made no sense, and the other half were an escalating tirade of fear.
"Please, please everyone!" The Captain shouted, and… and if I could hear the tension, the rising panic in his voice, then so could the crowd.
"Please won't bring my wife back!" The widower from earlier howled, pushing his way into the firefighter's personal space.
The Captain, realising he was really losing control of the situation now, put a hand on the man's chest to gently push him away. "Please—"
As if in slow motion, April and I watched as the man wound his arm back and punched the Captain right in the face. The firefighter staggered backwards, clutching his nose while blood flew everywhere. Beside him, the squad leader reached forwards, grabbed the widower by the collar, and pulled him out of the crowd and onto the ground. His head hit the pavement with a hideous wet crack and in an instant, his limbs twitched, then fell still.
A hush fell over the crowd as everyone stared at the warm corpse on the ground. Blood glistened, pooling out from the point where skull had met hard concrete.
"You killed him!" Someone screamed, and all hell broke loose.
"We're leaving," April said, grabbing the box we'd just put the ingots in. In a daze, I followed suit, taking the dagger blank and the tools. Together, we rushed into the workshop and locked the door.
"What's all the commotion?" Charles asked, grumpily ambling over. His harmless, grouchy countenance was so at odds with the shock of what I just saw that it made my head reel.
"Angry crowd out there with the captain," April explained, voice shaking. "Got violent. Some guy is dead after he attacked the cap. Accident… but…"
Charles' expression turned sympathetic and, I think, protective. "Christ almighty. Sit down, sit tight kiddos."
Without another word, he grabbed a hammer and sheet of steel that was laying against the wall. "Let ol' Charles go sort the problem."
“I’m going to check again,” April said, pushing to her feet and grabbing the tongs.
I gratefully hopped off the bellows-bike and picked up and slipped on a pair of big fire-resistant gloves, then followed her. I took the brick we were using as a door in both hands and lifted it easily out of the way, opening a portal into a miniature version of hell. The furnace blasted my face with heat, and I winced but held my ground.
April approached from beside me and gingerly extended the tongs into the furnace. When she was sure she had a good grip, she pulled the crucible out and we eagerly peered inside, only to be met with more disappointment. The lump of squiron was happily glowing and very much not a liquid.
“Fuck,” April swore, and after a moment, she placed the crucible onto the ground. “I’m just going to see if we can work it into shape, since we’re clearly not going to get this damn furnace hot enough.”
“Hold on, hold on,” I said, raising a hand. “Maybe we need to do this in a… less mundane fashion.”
She gave me a look. “What does that mean?”
“Well… your class is metalworker, right? Do you have any abilities or whatever?”
“Nope. I have my attributes and that’s kind of it…”
I blew out a long breath and considered our options. Then, I had an idea. “Hey Cynath, are you there?”
“I am here. What do you need?” Cynath’s voice was muted, as though she were speaking softly through a layer of cloth.
April’s eyes flew wide, but she kept her silence while I asked, “Why don’t I or April have abilities for our crafting classes?”
Cynath’s voice got closer, louder. "One moment, sweet Kaia.”
Kaia? April mouthed.
“It’s the name she chose for herself,” Cynath said, snitching on me.
"Hey! You're not meant to say that! It's personal!" I complained, looking up to pout and glare at the moon.
"Oh! Apologies!" She said, sound actually sincere. "I'm rather distracted. You see, I have a bet going with Venus about… well, that's spoilers, but she's very adamant that my prediction will be naught but wind. Which is, of course, preposterous. This is very clearly my domain, and—"
I cleared my throat pointedly.
"Right. Yes. Anyway… classes… creative classes with no skills… oh, my! It would appear something is—" she said, sounding more and more surprised as she spoke. "Goodness me, what an oversight. I'll need to let the others know— oh, what a show off! Of course he'd resort immediately to percussive maintenance! Bloody typical. Well, it appears that the little wrinkle in the laws of reality have been corrected… oh! I have to choose now? My goodness, this is strange."
What in the ever loving fuck was going on up in god-town?
"Huh… whatever just happened, I have choices in my crafting class now," April murmured.
Oh, did that mean… yup! I had choices! Let's see…
Floating in my mind's eye were several potential abilities, but I could feel only two mana containers onto which I could imprint the abilities. My choices were difficult to discern at first, requiring concentration to figure out.
The first one that caught my eye was a sort of guided cut, where my mana would help my next slice with a knife to go exactly as I intended it. Then I saw the one that would give me an innate sense of the stress a part was under, and I immediately picked it. It was such a busted ability! Holy moly!
Still, I had one more to choose, and so many options…
Oh. Interesting. There was one here that would help me figure out how to get around a problem. It seemed that if I was stuck while I was trying to build something, it would give me a vague hint, like highlighting an object or whatever. It sounded really boring on paper, but I could see a million ways it would help. That was the one I picked as my second ability.
The other options promptly faded away, and I was left staring at April while Cynath radio babbled in the background.
"No, no, you're an absolute barbarian… Of course it worked, but it very easily might not have… I swear by the— don't you walk away from me!"
The irate goddess' voice trailed off into silence, and into that silence, April began to laugh. "Dude, what the fuck was that? You just called your patron deity up on the phone and got one half of a fuckin' lover's spat or some shit. Oh and it sounds like one of the other gods kicked reality until it gave us our abilities. The universe has gone fully certifiable, god damn!"
"Oh, I know," I said, shaking my head wearily. "Cynath is… it doesn't matter. What abilities did you pick?"
As if I hit a switch on a certain kind of toy, April began to vibrate with glee. "Watch this!"
No sooner had she spoken than she shoved her hand into the furnace without a glove. Stunned, I started to leap to her rescue, but she withdrew her hand again, holding a glowing ember between forefinger and thumb.
"Fire resistant hands!" She exclaimed triumphantly. Then she grinned even further. "Oh, and this!"
She slapped the hand with the ember onto the side of the furnace, and a wave of heat hit me like the sun itself was giving me a hug.
After making sure I still had my eyebrows, I couldn't help but match her excitement. "Problem solved! Let's get the crucible back into the furnace!"
Matching my glee, she grabbed the still boiling hot crucible in both hands and shoved it back into the fire. When her hands came out, they were free of burns again. We both stared at them for several seconds, then shared a look of wonder.
"I have to channel magic when I want it to work," she hedged. "But…"
"But it’s still damn cool."
"Hell yes it is!" She said, and slapped the brick-door back into place. "Time to really heat this baby up!"
Without any further encouragement, I jumped back on the bike and began to pedal with all my might. April knelt beside the furnace and placed both hands against it. The heat of the furnace jumped instantly, growing so hot that I could feel the difference from almost a metre away.
Five minutes later I was covered in sweat, and April was drained of mana. We figured it was time to try again with the pour though, and opened the furnace to take a look.
She used the tongs to grab the crucible this time, and when we peered inside, we were rewarded by the sight of brightly glowing molten squiron. Wasting approximately zero seconds, April began to pour molten metal down into the mould. It sizzled and bubbled for several seconds until there was nothing left in the crucible. We’d have to let it cool down and then hammer the dagger blanks into proper shape and grind an edge on them, but eventually we’d have some weapons.
Although, I was dreading trying to figure out how to make proper reusable moulds with the tools and materials on hand. It would need to be done in the end, because only a crazy person would try to outfit a small army like ours by lovingly hand crafting each dagger. Nah, we were going to cast that shit, bash it, and grind it until it was good enough to do the job.
"Nice! Get me some of the ingot moulds," April demanded after a moment. "They should be on the same trolley that had the anvil. I want to melt down a bunch more of this stuff while the furnace is running hot enough to melt it."
Without argument, I turned and rushed back into the workshop. Charles and the other worker were busy having a confused conversation about their new ability choices, but I didn't stop to help. Charles gave me a super weird look when I walked past, but otherwise didn’t comment. I didn’t expect him to do a complete one eighty on his views after April’s little speech earlier, but it at least did the trick of getting him off my back.
Grabbing four ingot moulds and enough squiron scraps to fill them, I skipped back out where April was waiting with a still warm crucible.
While she held it, I began to drop chunks of metal down into it, then back into the furnace it went. Meanwhile, I lined all the moulds up on the table and then took my place back on the bike.
Together, we churned out ten ingots of squiron before I began to beg for a longer rest. My poor legs were dying from the constant cycling, and I think April was missing chunks of her eyebrows from the heat.
Still, it was so satisfying to get it to work, and we shared a high five. As we did so, angry shouting burst out over the courtyard. From the side door to the gymnasium came a stream of people, many of whom looked ready to throw hands.
Backing away from them were two firefighters, the Captain and the squad leader from earlier today.
"Look at them," one man said, throwing an accusatory finger in our direction. "My wife is dead and they are having fun."
"Nobody is having fun, Mr Wilcolm," the Captain said placatingly. "Everyone is taking this situation very seriously, and we are deeply saddened by the death of everyone's loved ones."
"Really? Really?" A woman cried. "Hell has literally come to claim the world! It's the end! It's the rapture and we were left behind! It's over!"
"Now now," the squad leader called. "Mrs Kellan, please!"
"Don't you please me, Derek!" She hissed, stabbing him in the chest with a finger. "What can you possibly do for us now anyway? We might as well walk out into the night and let the demons have us!"
The crowd quivered as people added their nonsensical additions, and I instinctively took a step closer to April. They were so angry—teetering on the brink of violence. Red faces and wild gestures were everywhere, and so were the feelings of the crowd. Half of the things they were shouting made no sense, and the other half were an escalating tirade of fear.
"Please, please everyone!" The Captain shouted, and… and if I could hear the tension, the rising panic in his voice, then so could the crowd.
"Please won't bring my wife back!" The widower from earlier howled, pushing his way into the firefighter's personal space.
The Captain, realising he was really losing control of the situation now, put a hand on the man's chest to gently push him away. "Please—"
As if in slow motion, April and I watched as the man wound his arm back and punched the Captain right in the face. The firefighter staggered backwards, clutching his nose while blood flew everywhere. Beside him, the squad leader reached forwards, grabbed the widower by the collar, and pulled him out of the crowd and onto the ground. His head hit the pavement with a hideous wet crack and in an instant, his limbs twitched, then fell still.
A hush fell over the crowd as everyone stared at the warm corpse on the ground. Blood glistened, pooling out from the point where skull had met hard concrete.
"You killed him!" Someone screamed, and all hell broke loose.
"We're leaving," April said, grabbing the box we'd just put the ingots in. In a daze, I followed suit, taking the dagger blank and the tools. Together, we rushed into the workshop and locked the door.
"What's all the commotion?" Charles asked, grumpily ambling over. His harmless, grouchy countenance was so at odds with the shock of what I just saw that it made my head reel.
"Angry crowd out there with the captain," April explained, voice shaking. "Got violent. Some guy is dead after he attacked the cap. Accident… but…"
Charles' expression turned sympathetic and, I think, protective. "Christ almighty. Sit down, sit tight kiddos."
Without another word, he grabbed a hammer and sheet of steel that was laying against the wall. "Let ol' Charles go sort the problem."
