Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Boy with a hammer

Ding! Ding! Ding!

 

“Hey! Allan! Quit making that noise. It is already too late for that. Sun is already getting down”

 

“But father… Sun is always getting down after lunch. Besides, I can see the sun is still 3 minutes away from sunset.” The boy pointed outside of the window.

 

“No complaining, Allan. I told you already. If you want to keep the pace up. You better buy your own workshop, which has a nonstop option for working there.” Voice laughed.

 

“I am the boss here, kiddo. Rest is also important.”

 

The boy who was just hammering a piece of metal stopped reluctantly. “Fine.” He tossed the hammer aside and took off his heavy blacksmith leather attire.

 

“Do not forget to close the furnace lid. Let the fire die down.”

 

“Yes.” Allan answered his father, who was cleaning up the other room. He quickly and finely finished and made a quick stop in the bathroom to be up. On a mirror was a young boy. Around 12 years old with short brown hair. Someone well built him for his age, maybe because of his genetics or by the fact that he helped his father manage his blacksmithing shop since he was 5 years old.

 

After washing up and changing to clean clothes. He went towards the smithy. His father sat there in a corner by the table.

 

“Father. The water is still warm in the bathroom. You can finish your paperwork later”

 

“Ugh, no time to waste here.” His son jolted him awake from reading documents. He sat up from the chair and stretched a little.

Facing Allan was his father, Clayton. Man in mid-thirties, the prime time of his life. He is a muscular man, wearing a vest that made his biceps stand out. He left the room to wash as well. His short beard and messy hair made an easy excuse for stereotyping his profession.

 

Allan came to a table that had a lot of documents and random papers. It was quite a mess, but it was like his father, a single father with a life that revolves around the forging and his shop.

 

“He should clean his stuff, too.” He sighed.

 

At night, Allan used his spare oil lamp to learn his father’s work. On a side of a wall, facing the table. They scattered technical scrips and sketches around. This was a major study and office of his father. All in one place. But this place is like his father. Single father whose wife passed away shortly after giving birth.

 

Sadly, he did not have medical chances at that time. Perhaps, nowadays, he could have saved her with the help of doctors. But he never regrets it, as his wife, Cellena gave him a son.

 

Allan slowly read through the sketches. Burning them to his memories. There were some forgotten concepts of handheld weaponry, armors, and even some models of hidden swords. Combining the best of two worlds. He always thought his father had the craziest ideas. After all, in the current market and other information he got from the capital of the kingdom, it produced no weaponry in such a style.

 

Allan put away the oil lamp and made his way to his room on the second floor. A few hours of learning was enough for him. His father was already asleep. He had his room on the first floor, besides the blacksmithing shop, in case some thieves would emerge.

 

As he closed the door.

 

Downstairs, a light of a lamp could be seen from outside at the night that illuminated this otherwise calm and dark night. This light quickly and mysteriously reclined towards the floor of the shop, disappearing into the wood right in the middle of the shop.

 

Allan’s heart thumbed as he tried to sleep in his bed. “Not tonight.” He thought.

---

The new day arrived in a blink of an eye. Allan was sleepy and felt like not doing something that he liked to do. It was his little secret, yet sleep was important for him too.

 

The early morning was the same as usual. The radiating sun made the shop and home of Allan bright with a new day of work. Sometime after the sun emerged, Allan, already in his work attire, greeted his father, who was starting a fire in the furnace.

 

“Prepared for another successful day?” Clayton asked his son, who was yawning as he walked.

 

“Did you stay late again?” His father asked as his son still looked kind of sleepy.

 

“I was so full of knowledge I had trouble sleeping,” Allan said with mouth wide open.

 

“You have already read through everything on my desk for at least 3 times. Are you not bored with it already?”

 

“Not at all. Boris from Maine Trading company said that a good enough repetition of something, the better the final set of skills. I think it’s the same with a hammer in my hand. Hammering down toward the piece of metal. Slowly polishing it with great precision is like slowly polishing my brain.” Allan explained.

 

Clayton fell speechless. It made sense somehow.

 

“That old Boris. Sometimes he can say some clever things. Only if he did not spend almost every night in a pub. He could become one of the leading trade officers in the city.”

 

“That is true. Maybe he could get me some better learning materials since you always refuse them.” Allan added. Clayton quickly changed topics

“Anyway. Here is today's work for you. Repair 2 pairs of short swords and sharpen them. You can add 3 custom blades I made and sharpen them as well.” Clayton pointed towards the worktable in the middle of the biggest room. On the back were 4 furnaces. On the right side were sharpening tools and a room with materials and wood.

 

“Also, there is some order for high-quality steel pointed arrows. 100 of them. I stored arrowheads in a chest beneath the worktable so just work with wood, wire, wood strings, and some feather of swamp dark turkeys. Make sure you wipe them clean so their elasticity and straightness are guaranteed long term”

 

Allan stopped by the worktable.

 

“It's more work than usual. Wanna work me to my death before my adulthood?” Allan complained.

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“What? You do not know how to do these simple things?” Clayton looked at his son in curiosity.

 

“OF course I know them, but if I am finished before lunch, I want the rest of the day off.” Allan said with great confidence.

 

“Deal. I will also add some book for you, if you finish them. Only when you accomplish it, of course”

 

Allan’s eyes beamed with light. “I shall start immediately.”

 

Clayton could only sight. “Little competition is not a bad idea.” He thought and laughed at himself.

 

“Perhaps I should have done that earlier.” Zigmund thought to himself.

 

Zigmund went to do his own work within the furnace, while Allan grabbed the pair of short swords for repairs. He saw pronounced cracks in thin wood handles. The original maker must have been quite tough with this wood, or another possibility was the bad usage of the short swords.

 

Allan shook his head. “That is unnecessary to know about that. I am a blacksmith, after all.”

 

Within 20 minutes, he made new handles for both pairs of short swords with black oak wood. Mounting them in their sockets and went right to the sharpening station. The sharpening station was a simple tool that was powered by either hand or legs. Rotating around the front were many small whetstones which quickly made sharp edges with the right technique. It came forth around 500 years ago in the northeast continental war conflicts. Its popularity advanced warfare in the mortal worlds.

 

Unbeknown to its usage of mortals, it wasn’t useful for advanced kingdoms, which were part of greater powers. Hard alloys and types of ores outside of the ordinary were plentiful in the vast cosmos but were too hard for sharpening stations and its whetstones, which were hard to find in higher qualities.1 and a half hours went by and Allan finally finished sharpening all the blades. He even used some protective oil for the handles.

 

“Good blades.” Allan cleaved the air with both of them around.

 

“Time for the most time-consuming thing. Let's be efficient Allan!” He cheered himself and return to work.

 

Slamming the table with a heavy chest. Inside were neatly organized boxes of arrowheads. 5 rows with 20 each. Allan put each of them on the desk. Went around the forge and found everything necessary for 100 arrows.

 

He spends the first 2 hours preparing wooden parts for the bows. Added dried feathers which were dried up after cleaning. By the end of the afternoon. Right around the corner of lunchtime. He finished his 90th arrow.

 

“Ugh. Not fast enough. 20 minutes over the usual time for lunch.” Allan thought, dissatisfied. This whole time, his father did not check on him.

 

“He already finished his forging, I suppose. I wonder why he wanted me to do all of this in just a day. We would usually split the work to make it fair. I would usually do this kind of work in about 8 hours with no hurry.” Allan noticed his father was already gone from his forge.

 

After finishing the rest in the remaining half an hour, he packed the arrows and stored the blades in a box. They were neatly organized for customers to get them.

 

With changed clothes. He was finally done.

 

“Time for lunch!”

 

Allan cheered himself again, as there was no need to be upset. So what if he failed? It was just a regular day in this shop with his father. Allan went upstairs. Surprised to see his father in the kitchen, who was sitting by a window, reading some papers. He seemed rather lost in the reading.

 

“Oh, Allan? “Done already?” Clayton asked Allan.

 

“Yes. I packed items downstairs.”

 

“Good job for quick work. I will check them later before completing the contract. The rest of your day is off as you wish. I will get some job done. Boris inquired me about some excellent work opportunities, but I will need to check them myself. It will be on the other side of the city.”

 

“But I did not finish in time.” Allan told the truth.

 

“Even though you are having lunch now? Allan, I thought we made a deal?” Clayton asked with a smile on his face.

 

Allan, stunned by this development, did not know what to say. “Alright then. What about the shop? Is it worth the job? ”

 

“It will be closed for a day or two. You can practice in the shop in these days. I will drop you some books to your liking if everything will go well and yes, a week’s worth of gold coins.” Clayton happily answered Allan’s questions.

 

“Be right back.” Clayton went downstairs and came back upstairs in a few minutes with a decent-looking, hard-covered book. He tossed it at the kitchen table. Facing Allan was a barely readable cover art which was just scribbles and a sentence in the middle.

 

First order of mixing.

 

“Thank you, father.” Allan thanked and glanced at a few pages. “Did you write it yourself? Sounds like a craziness you would make. And some of the pages are even missing. What are those notes and writing against printed sentences? Who does that?” Allan asked.

“It's rather old and probably just your imagination. Allan. I will be on my way. Do not burn the house down.” Clayton commented as he walked away.

 

“He changed topics again.” Allan sighed.

 

“Oh well. It’s at least something new. I will keep it for the early evenings. Father should be back at night, I hope. Still, this book should last me quite a few days if it’s interesting enough.”

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