“This is …” We stood in front of a rather shabby smithy build entirely out of rough stone. Except for the door of course … and the two windows. The furniture as well … and the stands for armour, weapons and … apparently someone wanted to see the world burn.
The heat hit us once we strolled into the smithy like a tsunami. It felt honestly quite good on my skin even though the others certainly didn’t feel that way. Luna immediately began to cough loudly and Hannah wasn´t feeling that well thanks to her thicker clothing.
“We are closed. Piss off.” A small man said while hammering on a ambos to make a sword. Curiously, I tilted my head to look at the ground, or more specifically towards the stool he was standing on. He was short. Really short. And yet he looked quite bulky as well. It almost looked like a child had taken too much testosterone as he had quite the beard as well, which could only mean one thing.
“A dwarf!” I exclaimed happily. I had never seen one before after all.
“Aye, a dwarf. Do you know how often I get to hear that you fucking cunt?” He did irritate me quite a bit though. I seriously didn’t expect him to bully a potential customer like this.
“Don’t take that personal, Lucy. They are a little rough on the outside, but they are a hidden gem otherwise.” Hannah said which made the dwarf quite angry. Maybe she shouldn’t have used a comparison to stones and gems in regards to dwarfs.
“Said the elven douchebag.” The dwarf said, hammering onto the sword with deadly precision.
“See. He is just like Pauline.” Hannah proposed and even though I had to wait several seconds to remember the name of the whore, I still found the parallels amusing.
“Interesting. I heard you are a talented magical smith?” I asked.
“Cut the crap and come to the point.” He said while glaring at me. Or he just looked. The beard made it quite hard to discern the truth, especially because I couldn’t see any animosity in his eyes.
“Χρειαζόμαστε περιοριστές” I said in perfect dwarfish which could be translated to what we came for. We needed limiters to hide the title, but they were slightly illegal. Thus, I asked in a language nobody should be able to understand.
“Stop speaking dwarfish, that’s cultural appropriation.” I could only stand there flabbergasted. This dwarf really knew how to get on my nerves.
“Eh? How is that … never mind. We are here to order an …” I stopped speaking as he glared at Hannah who looked away from him quickly. I knew they had some sort of history together, otherwise Hannah wouldn’t recommend him to craft something illegal, but I must have severely misjudged the kind of relation they had.
“I don’t craft for women.” Blaming me for cultural appropriation and then being sexist himself? That’s some mental gymnastics.
“Ehh? There is no such rule.” I claimed and watched in amazement how he pointed to a wooden board where that rule was really written down, right next to a simple carving of him and his daughter with their names underneath.
“Wow … that’s …” I let my gaze wander to Hannah who apparently found a lot of interest in the melting furnace of the dwarf together with Luna. “Why?”
“Because she came by last time to order two hundred swords out of the scales of a black dragon. Do you know how fire resistant dragon scales are? No? That’s because melting them down is insanely hard! And worst of all, she didn’t even tell me these scales were from a pest dragon!” The dwarf said in an insanely angry voice.
“To my defence, we found them in an old ruin and none of us got sick.” Hannah said which did brighten up my mood somewhat. The thought of the dwarf and his employees being sick was just too funny. “And I paid handsomely afterwards.” Hannah said while jingling her purse.
“Please, we need your help.” Luna pleaded and pursed her lips. Quickly, I strolled over to her and whispered in her ear while trying to make it look as unsuspicious as possible.
“And who are you?” asked the blacksmith. Luna looked to me at first and then back towards the dwarf.
“My name is Clara.” Luna said with a slightly trembling voice.
“Clara? That’s such a sweet name …” He raised his eyebrow at me, turned around and looked at the carving his daughter made. “I suppose your name is Clara as well?”
“No … nono. My name is Clararissa, but my friends call me Clara. Please, you need to help us.” I said and placed both of my hands in front of me pleadingly.
“Why should I?” He growled a bit angrily which was understandable considering that we didn’t act that nicely.
“This is Luna White, the daughter of the duke of Eastminster and attendant to the saint herself. She … we all need your assistance regarding a matter concerning the gods.” I placed my hands on Luna´s shoulder and smiled reassuringly.
“Are you kidding me?” He asked and eyed Luna from head to toe.
“It´s the truth.” I stated without hesitation.
“Hey elven woman, is that the truth?” He questioned Hannah as if I was untrustworthy.
“Without a doubt. Listen, Glorizoick, we nee-“ Hannah started, but was soon interrupted by the dwarf angrily.
“My name is Darefrat.” We seriously didn’t show ourselves from our best side, did we?
“… as I said, we need your help. Naturally, we will compensate you handsomely.” Hannah mentioned while staring at the melting oven once again. I mean, the glowing embers looked kind of nice, so I could understand why she didn’t look at the dwarf.
“Twice the usual price?” The blacksmith asked even angrier.
“One and a half time?” Hannah asked which may have been a bad idea. The dwarf didn’t look too favourable upon us after all.
“Three times.”
“Three times … okay. Can you craft three limiter for us?” Hannah asked and the dwarf stopped the hammer going for another strike in mid air.
“I´m not doing anything illegal.” He stated.
“It is just … slightly illegal. It needs to hide the title ‘Saint’s Follower’ … and the usual stuff, alright?” The usual stuff were probably her murders, the torture, probably a bit of theft … no wonder she wanted to hide these things.
“And why would anyone hide such a title?” The dwarf asked with raised eyebrows.
“Because I don’t want my predecessors to be envious.” Nice save, Luna! “But … could you make it in the form of a dove with an olive branch in its beaks? My mum dislikes rings, but a necklace should be fine.” Luna explained enthusiastically while I already thought about all the pain due to having to wear a symbol of peace.
“Fine … is that all?” The blacksmith asked begrudgingly.
“As long as everything in here stays secret.” Hannah stated and turned around to flee the smithy as fast as possible.
“Get lost then. It´s done in a week or so.” The smith said and shooed us out of the building.
“Thank you very much.” Luna said in front of me as she crossed over the doorstep. During the last second, I actually changed my mind and waited a bit. The door closed in front of me, leaving me alone with the dwarf in the room.
“Actually, I need something else as well. I was told you are an excellent magical blacksmith.” I said and looked over my shoulder towards him.
“So what?” He questioned visibly bothered by me.
“I need a very specific hammer which may push your abilities to the limit. Are you interested?” I asked with a cute smile on my lips.
“Just spit it out.” He growled angrily.
“Very well then. Make the hammer as heavy as you can, the handle around the size of my lower arm and most importantly, it shouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. Once you hit another person with it make the hammer squeak loudly … like a pig. Can you do that?” I stated grinning from ear to ear.
“What is that for a request?” Something that would test his skills, nothing more nothing less. Okay, I also thought about hitting Tom with that hammer, but so what?
“Can you do it?” I repeated once more.
“… surely.” He mumbled. Shortly afterwards, I opened the door and strolled out of the smithy while waving my hand over my shoulder, happy that I found someone who could possibly craft all the things I dreamt about. The hammer was obviously just the beginning.
“Heyho!” I exclaimed and waved to Hannah and Luna waiting a few metres away.
“What did you have to discuss with him?” Hannah asked while raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry about that, I nailed the conversation.” I said and snipped with my fingers happily.
“I see…” Hannah mumbled quietly.
“What´s a cunt?” Luna asked in the middle of the street with several others around us. Hannah and I looked at her in surprise and even one of the pedestrians looked at her in horror. A cute girl like her should never use these kinds of words after all.
“… where did you get that from?” I stumbled over my words aghast. She wasn’t the type of person to use these words after all. She was the innocent type. The type one wanted to hug and never let go afterwards.
“The dwarf mentioned it.” At least she had a reason for asking. I seriously doubted telling her the truth was a great idea though as I didn’t want to ruin her innocent behaviour.
“It is dwarfish for … for nice customer. But don’t use it or other dwarfs will get angry …” I mumbled and looked away demonstratively. It would be very bad for my reputation if Luna would ask her mum about this word after all. I could only imagine how fast I would be kicked out of the mansion and without any home, I would be forced to sleep in Tom´s mansion or a flea infested inn. And truthfully, I seriously didn’t know which option to pick.
“I see …” She wasn’t entirely convinced, which may or may not have something to do with Hannah´s forced smile. That traitor could have given more than that, but whatever. “And what now?”
“Hmm … I haven’t been here for a rather long time, so why don’t you choose what to do?” Or rather, it wouldn’t matter how long I wasn’t in this city. I still didn’t know where I could find anything relevant. I was lucky that I had my compass back already, even though I hadn’t managed to get my fingers on a map yet.
“Really? Then … I heard there is a rather famous bookstore around here!” Luna was really enthusiastic all of a sudden while I asked myself why she wanted to go there in the first place. But I wasn’t willing to diminish her happiness in the slightest and Hannah didn’t seem to have a problem either. And so, without further ado, we began to walk towards the bookstore Luna mentioned. It was more than half an hour away and I only barely stepped in two horse droppings on the way during that time, but whatever.
The store turned out to be a quite interesting one though. Build out entirely off wood, it fitted nicely into the surroundings. It wasn’t too shabby, but also not noble like at all. It was built for a function which it served perfectly.
To wash money.
A three-pronged crown proudly hung over the entrance for everyone to see, including the guards of course. No pedestrian looked worried in any way though, which lead me to the conclusion that this was not an abnormal sight.
“Luna, is there anything out of the ordinary with this shop?” I asked as we stood just a few steps away from it.
“No?” She asked and raised an eyebrow. She clearly didn’t get what I was asking for and thus, I intended to help her a bit,
“What about the crown? Isn´t that a symbol of some criminal organization?” I asked and pointed at the yellow crown shape. There was no mistaking it. Even though it was a bit mutilated, it was still our symbol.
“Lucy, that was the case two hundred years ago. Nowadays, it is a successful franchise which has shops in nearly every area there is. Two hundred years is a long time and nobody except the king can monopolize on the symbol for too long.” Hannah helped out and opened the door for us. With a quiet ringing sound, the shop full off books presented itself to us.
“Times surely change.” Did we have another symbol? I could only hope it wasn’t something embarrassing because I surely would have to wear that symbol in the future again. While begging the symbol of our underground organisation to be a bow with an arrow nocked onto it, I followed Luna into the bookstore. She was clearly a bit too excited about the prospect of buying a few books and immediately rushed towards the nearest bookshelf full of history books.
Times never change …
“This is …” We stood in front of a rather shabby smithy build entirely out of rough stone. Except for the door of course … and the two windows. The furniture as well … and the stands for armour, weapons and … apparently someone wanted to see the world burn.
The heat hit us once we strolled into the smithy like a tsunami. It felt honestly quite good on my skin even though the others certainly didn’t feel that way. Luna immediately began to cough loudly and Hannah wasn´t feeling that well thanks to her thicker clothing.
“We are closed. Piss off.” A small man said while hammering on a ambos to make a sword. Curiously, I tilted my head to look at the ground, or more specifically towards the stool he was standing on. He was short. Really short. And yet he looked quite bulky as well. It almost looked like a child had taken too much testosterone as he had quite the beard as well, which could only mean one thing.
“A dwarf!” I exclaimed happily. I had never seen one before after all.
“Aye, a dwarf. Do you know how often I get to hear that you fucking cunt?” He did irritate me quite a bit though. I seriously didn’t expect him to bully a potential customer like this.
“Don’t take that personal, Lucy. They are a little rough on the outside, but they are a hidden gem otherwise.” Hannah said which made the dwarf quite angry. Maybe she shouldn’t have used a comparison to stones and gems in regards to dwarfs.
“Said the elven douchebag.” The dwarf said, hammering onto the sword with deadly precision.
“See. He is just like Pauline.” Hannah proposed and even though I had to wait several seconds to remember the name of the whore, I still found the parallels amusing.
“Interesting. I heard you are a talented magical smith?” I asked.
“Cut the crap and come to the point.” He said while glaring at me. Or he just looked. The beard made it quite hard to discern the truth, especially because I couldn’t see any animosity in his eyes.
“Χρειαζόμαστε περιοριστές” I said in perfect dwarfish which could be translated to what we came for. We needed limiters to hide the title, but they were slightly illegal. Thus, I asked in a language nobody should be able to understand.
“Stop speaking dwarfish, that’s cultural appropriation.” I could only stand there flabbergasted. This dwarf really knew how to get on my nerves.
“Eh? How is that … never mind. We are here to order an …” I stopped speaking as he glared at Hannah who looked away from him quickly. I knew they had some sort of history together, otherwise Hannah wouldn’t recommend him to craft something illegal, but I must have severely misjudged the kind of relation they had.
“I don’t craft for women.” Blaming me for cultural appropriation and then being sexist himself? That’s some mental gymnastics.
“Ehh? There is no such rule.” I claimed and watched in amazement how he pointed to a wooden board where that rule was really written down, right next to a simple carving of him and his daughter with their names underneath.
“Wow … that’s …” I let my gaze wander to Hannah who apparently found a lot of interest in the melting furnace of the dwarf together with Luna. “Why?”
“Because she came by last time to order two hundred swords out of the scales of a black dragon. Do you know how fire resistant dragon scales are? No? That’s because melting them down is insanely hard! And worst of all, she didn’t even tell me these scales were from a pest dragon!” The dwarf said in an insanely angry voice.
“To my defence, we found them in an old ruin and none of us got sick.” Hannah said which did brighten up my mood somewhat. The thought of the dwarf and his employees being sick was just too funny. “And I paid handsomely afterwards.” Hannah said while jingling her purse.
“Please, we need your help.” Luna pleaded and pursed her lips. Quickly, I strolled over to her and whispered in her ear while trying to make it look as unsuspicious as possible.
“And who are you?” asked the blacksmith. Luna looked to me at first and then back towards the dwarf.
“My name is Clara.” Luna said with a slightly trembling voice.
“Clara? That’s such a sweet name …” He raised his eyebrow at me, turned around and looked at the carving his daughter made. “I suppose your name is Clara as well?”
“No … nono. My name is Clararissa, but my friends call me Clara. Please, you need to help us.” I said and placed both of my hands in front of me pleadingly.
“Why should I?” He growled a bit angrily which was understandable considering that we didn’t act that nicely.
“This is Luna White, the daughter of the duke of Eastminster and attendant to the saint herself. She … we all need your assistance regarding a matter concerning the gods.” I placed my hands on Luna´s shoulder and smiled reassuringly.
“Are you kidding me?” He asked and eyed Luna from head to toe.
“It´s the truth.” I stated without hesitation.
“Hey elven woman, is that the truth?” He questioned Hannah as if I was untrustworthy.
“Without a doubt. Listen, Glorizoick, we nee-“ Hannah started, but was soon interrupted by the dwarf angrily.
“My name is Darefrat.” We seriously didn’t show ourselves from our best side, did we?
“… as I said, we need your help. Naturally, we will compensate you handsomely.” Hannah mentioned while staring at the melting oven once again. I mean, the glowing embers looked kind of nice, so I could understand why she didn’t look at the dwarf.
“Twice the usual price?” The blacksmith asked even angrier.
“One and a half time?” Hannah asked which may have been a bad idea. The dwarf didn’t look too favourable upon us after all.
“Three times.”
“Three times … okay. Can you craft three limiter for us?” Hannah asked and the dwarf stopped the hammer going for another strike in mid air.
“I´m not doing anything illegal.” He stated.
“It is just … slightly illegal. It needs to hide the title ‘Saint’s Follower’ … and the usual stuff, alright?” The usual stuff were probably her murders, the torture, probably a bit of theft … no wonder she wanted to hide these things.
“And why would anyone hide such a title?” The dwarf asked with raised eyebrows.
“Because I don’t want my predecessors to be envious.” Nice save, Luna! “But … could you make it in the form of a dove with an olive branch in its beaks? My mum dislikes rings, but a necklace should be fine.” Luna explained enthusiastically while I already thought about all the pain due to having to wear a symbol of peace.
“Fine … is that all?” The blacksmith asked begrudgingly.
“As long as everything in here stays secret.” Hannah stated and turned around to flee the smithy as fast as possible.
“Get lost then. It´s done in a week or so.” The smith said and shooed us out of the building.
“Thank you very much.” Luna said in front of me as she crossed over the doorstep. During the last second, I actually changed my mind and waited a bit. The door closed in front of me, leaving me alone with the dwarf in the room.
“Actually, I need something else as well. I was told you are an excellent magical blacksmith.” I said and looked over my shoulder towards him.
“So what?” He questioned visibly bothered by me.
“I need a very specific hammer which may push your abilities to the limit. Are you interested?” I asked with a cute smile on my lips.
“Just spit it out.” He growled angrily.
“Very well then. Make the hammer as heavy as you can, the handle around the size of my lower arm and most importantly, it shouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. Once you hit another person with it make the hammer squeak loudly … like a pig. Can you do that?” I stated grinning from ear to ear.
“What is that for a request?” Something that would test his skills, nothing more nothing less. Okay, I also thought about hitting Tom with that hammer, but so what?
“Can you do it?” I repeated once more.
“… surely.” He mumbled. Shortly afterwards, I opened the door and strolled out of the smithy while waving my hand over my shoulder, happy that I found someone who could possibly craft all the things I dreamt about. The hammer was obviously just the beginning.
“Heyho!” I exclaimed and waved to Hannah and Luna waiting a few metres away.
“What did you have to discuss with him?” Hannah asked while raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry about that, I nailed the conversation.” I said and snipped with my fingers happily.
“I see…” Hannah mumbled quietly.
“What´s a cunt?” Luna asked in the middle of the street with several others around us. Hannah and I looked at her in surprise and even one of the pedestrians looked at her in horror. A cute girl like her should never use these kinds of words after all.
“… where did you get that from?” I stumbled over my words aghast. She wasn’t the type of person to use these words after all. She was the innocent type. The type one wanted to hug and never let go afterwards.
“The dwarf mentioned it.” At least she had a reason for asking. I seriously doubted telling her the truth was a great idea though as I didn’t want to ruin her innocent behaviour.
“It is dwarfish for … for nice customer. But don’t use it or other dwarfs will get angry …” I mumbled and looked away demonstratively. It would be very bad for my reputation if Luna would ask her mum about this word after all. I could only imagine how fast I would be kicked out of the mansion and without any home, I would be forced to sleep in Tom´s mansion or a flea infested inn. And truthfully, I seriously didn’t know which option to pick.
“I see …” She wasn’t entirely convinced, which may or may not have something to do with Hannah´s forced smile. That traitor could have given more than that, but whatever. “And what now?”
“Hmm … I haven’t been here for a rather long time, so why don’t you choose what to do?” Or rather, it wouldn’t matter how long I wasn’t in this city. I still didn’t know where I could find anything relevant. I was lucky that I had my compass back already, even though I hadn’t managed to get my fingers on a map yet.
“Really? Then … I heard there is a rather famous bookstore around here!” Luna was really enthusiastic all of a sudden while I asked myself why she wanted to go there in the first place. But I wasn’t willing to diminish her happiness in the slightest and Hannah didn’t seem to have a problem either. And so, without further ado, we began to walk towards the bookstore Luna mentioned. It was more than half an hour away and I only barely stepped in two horse droppings on the way during that time, but whatever.
The store turned out to be a quite interesting one though. Build out entirely off wood, it fitted nicely into the surroundings. It wasn’t too shabby, but also not noble like at all. It was built for a function which it served perfectly.
To wash money.
A three-pronged crown proudly hung over the entrance for everyone to see, including the guards of course. No pedestrian looked worried in any way though, which lead me to the conclusion that this was not an abnormal sight.
“Luna, is there anything out of the ordinary with this shop?” I asked as we stood just a few steps away from it.
“No?” She asked and raised an eyebrow. She clearly didn’t get what I was asking for and thus, I intended to help her a bit,
“What about the crown? Isn´t that a symbol of some criminal organization?” I asked and pointed at the yellow crown shape. There was no mistaking it. Even though it was a bit mutilated, it was still our symbol.
“Lucy, that was the case two hundred years ago. Nowadays, it is a successful franchise which has shops in nearly every area there is. Two hundred years is a long time and nobody except the king can monopolize on the symbol for too long.” Hannah helped out and opened the door for us. With a quiet ringing sound, the shop full off books presented itself to us.
“Times surely change.” Did we have another symbol? I could only hope it wasn’t something embarrassing because I surely would have to wear that symbol in the future again. While begging the symbol of our underground organisation to be a bow with an arrow nocked onto it, I followed Luna into the bookstore. She was clearly a bit too excited about the prospect of buying a few books and immediately rushed towards the nearest bookshelf full of history books.
Times never change …
