Chapter 207: 205 – Hammerforged

...And with that final blow, the Forgemother’s manifestation lost cohesion, dissolving into wisps of blue fire that blew away into the night sky upon the winds, whilst her true essence returned to little more than an everburning blue coal within the forge reactor.

Many of those still out and about witnessed this feat of divine smithing being performed, but only few understood its magnitude, thinking it to be an arcane fireworks display. It wasn’t the first of such displays from the caravan, after all - it was just one of the few whose source was genuine.

The Krishorn mother-daughter duo was among those people, and the older of them felt a persistent sting over having rejected Sarz many decades prior.

---

Struggling back to his feet and dusting himself, the youngest among the smiths, the monk-noble, could do naught but laugh to himself at the ridiculous confluence of events. Craning his neck to see the radiant manifestation looming overhead, the sound of distant music carried on the wind and broke through the reactor’s deafening roar.

“Beneath our hands of iron, no tyranny shall stand!” Damaya repeated the song’s words in a cackling cocktail of ecstasy and indignation. 

The absurdity of that single line somehow circled around back to genuine appreciation. A folk song’s melody, co-opted for modern instruments and overlaid with lyrics extolling the might of the tankmen.

It was true that such lyrical matters were common in that band’s songs to begin with, he knew well that they had likely built their setlist with the intent of rousing the spirits of the populace in this downtrodden time, but it was still ridiculous.

What had transpired above the smithy was still burned into his retinas as he returned inside and beheld the glory of their creation, cold-iron plates shining such bright blue as to approach pure white, yet its runes shone brighter still.

And Sarz stood there, his hand still grasping the hammer. The old scars of his hand glowed a fast-fading blue with the reactor’s residual energies, but to the surprise of both his juniors, the blacksmith appeared unscathed. 

“We’re… Back to baseline? Huh? Damage seems to be minimal, that can’t be right… If the manifestation didn’t force its way out of the reactor, was that lightshow just...” Damaya muttered, looking from one dial to the next, bewildered at what he saw. 

“Just bleedoff, yeah,” Sarz breathed, decoupling his hammer from the mechanized arm that connected it to the reactor. “Really puts Jade Dragons into context, don’t it?”

“I seem to recall a little voice from the lingering smoke mentioning the tendency of Jade Dragons to produce exaggerated visible bleedoff, but I didn’t think it would be this extreme…” a struggling voice was heard from across the smithy as Gen dug himself out of a pile of knocked-over tools and scrap.

“And y’didn’t think it’d be pertinent to mention that?! I damn-near had a religious experience there!” Sarz snapped at him, anger shifting to laughter midway through the outburst. The white-haired smith offered up his hammer-hand for Gen, who took it without hesitation, despite the fact it scorched his skin, for his hands had long grown numb to fire. 

The Three Smiths turned their eyes to the newborn artifact upon the anvil, quietly seething with arcane power. 

“Let’s anoint it,” Sarz rumbled, holding out his left hand for the crystal glass bottle of anointing oil. 

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With this final step the artifact would be given a name, an identity - for a smith to not do so would be the same as a parent not naming their child, at least in Sarz’s mind. Damaya didn’t particularly care for the naming, seeing the oil as no more than a quenching agent, and Gen simply considered such anointing one of the more consistent tools for ending the creation ritual.

As Gen handed over the bottle after retrieving it, he asked a question: “I trust you’ve read my dossier on the customer, yes?”

“Hard not to have...” grumbled the white-haired mountain of muscle, idly closing and opening his right hand as he grabbed the bottle and pulled the metal stopper with his teeth. In a flash, he grabbed a pair of tongs and took hold of one of the gauntlet’s plates with it, pouring the precious liquid. 

Blessed oil boiled and burned away.

Shining blue became cold silver.

Sarz had decided the name before he had even made the second hammer-strike, now chiseling it in its designated place on the pauldron’s inner side.

“Four years, and I’m still not used to this shit…” sighed Damaya, already going through the numerous checks to once more reassure himself that nothing had sustained serious damage.

---

Zelsys woke in the night, not knowing why. She fell back to sleep seconds later.

---

Zelsys arrived at the smiths’ many-legged machine-abomination of a mobile forge in the later hours of the morning, on the way presented with the sight of Willowdale’s Tankmen marching - if somewhat stiffly and awkwardly - through the street. Meanwhile, Zef had gone off to Riverside Remedies to help Makhus with some experiment, though what it was eluded her. She suspected something to do with the weird belt.

Zel could’ve sworn it had stood in a different place last time. Had they moved it?

It was clear that the caravan was beginning to trickle away vendor by vendor, with those most reliant upon novelty being the first to leave, even if many of them were still present, still littering the fields and streets both. Oedo waved at her as she rode by, two well-off looking customers checking out his merchandise - merchandise that was noticeably modified, as if to tone down the original design in every way in order to appeal to more people. 

The silhouette was a little sleeker, and the engine was visibly smaller as if parts had been removed. It looked more like an actual motorbike than the weapon on wheels that Zel’s model was. From having read the manual, she remembered that the main engine was actually made up of several interconnected modules for ease of repair, meaning that Oedo had likely just removed a few and re-tuned the engine for this reduced level of performance. The Thundercharger’s turbine housing was also missing from these toned-down Faux-Sturmgandrs.

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