Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Water water

Today is going to be a wood-day. He collected a lot before, but he’s been neglecting it for the last week because of… well, because of everything.

 

Hineni sits downstairs at his favorite booth, watching Obscura, who is apparently now taking her turn to sleep, sitting up high on the rafters of the downstairs hall in the form of a small owl.

 

Looking down at the mug in his hands, he stares at the oddity. It’s full.

 

Turning his head, Hineni stares out of his favorite window, the steam of his tea rising up past his face as he looks out at the crowd walking past him and his world. Everyone looks so excited today, he notices. Maybe there’s an event in the dungeon again?

 

He sees some of his favorite adventurers walk past, on their way to the dungeon. But today he notices that the sting of seeing them pass by his window doesn’t really sit as deeply as it used to. He’s not jealous of them today, not really. He doesn’t secretly wish that he was in their group. He’s not exactly content, but he’s… soothed.

 

Hineni sighs, finally taking a sip of his tea, feeling his shoulders droop down and release about ten years of tension, give or take. Today is going to be a good d-

 

*DHUNK**DHUNK**DHUNK*

 

An explosion of feathers comes from above his head and he scrambles, spilling tea on the dusty book and his hands. Cursing, he shakes the book out as well as his arms. Was that the door? Oh no. Hineni leans over sideways, looking from his bench towards the door. It’s taken a long time, but people have finally managed to work up the courage to not only find his house, but to knock on his door.

 

*DHUNK**DHUNK**DHUNK*

 

Hineni nervously gets up, looking up towards the rafters. Obscura is gone, apparently having been scared off by the loud knocking. Though he’s sure that she’s just watching from some dark corner. He can feel her eyes drilling into him.

 

Pulling his yellow scarf tighter around his face, Hineni sets on his wizard’s hat and pulls it down low. Opening the door a split, he bars it from opening further with his boot and looks outside.

 

“Yes?” asks Hineni warily, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight that seems to be right in his face.

 

“Hineni, chosen of the owl-god?” asks an objectively attractive man in daring, red dragon-scale armor. A lavish carriage with open doors stands behind him.

 

Hineni looks around, gesturing for the man to lower his voice. “Yes?”

 

“Our master, the god of the forge, requests your presence for a meeting,” says the man, standing upright tall, speaking very loudly, as if this was some great, knightly honor he was bestowing. “This is a great, rare opportunity and -”

 

Hineni turns his head around, looking at the dingy building behind himself, a feather falls down from above, floating through the air.

 

“- No, thank you,” interrupts Hineni, shutting the door and walking away, shaking his head. An audience with a god? That sounds like a lot of stress. A popular god like that would not only have a huge number of people around him, but would probably live in a very inconvenient place, like in a nice neighborhood in the middle of the city. He’d have to go out, in broad daylight, to a populated part of the city, to a nice place that he’s never been to meet a literal god he doesn’t want to interact with, who is surrounded by hundreds of likely very talented, gifted and incredibly beautiful people.

 

Pass. He has enough inferiority complexes as is.

 

The door is knocked on again behind him, but he just ignores it and picks up the feather, returning to his window and setting it down on the table. Listening to the man knock on the door a couple more times, Hineni calmly sips his tea and watches the crowd go by, on their way to the dungeon.

 

Tonight he’s going to get some wood again, he decides. Maybe Obscura will come with him? They could take a walk to and through the forest together? That’d be nice. Now he just has to work up the courage to ask her. Hineni sips his tea, lifting the feather to smell it for a moment.

 

Is that a weird thing to do? He doesn’t know. It smells like owl, obviously.

You are reading story Weaponsmith : [A crafting litRPG] at novel35.com

 

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Night falls. Hineni goes out to the forest, not able to find Obscura. So he just goes by himself and collects wood, feeling a little lonely in an oddly nostalgic way. Then, when he returns home with a load of new wood, he gets ready to make some more weapons. There were a lot of interesting orders at the guild tonight.

 

Opening his front door, he finds Obscura waiting for him downstairs. She makes a big deal out of his earlier interaction with the stranger, prancing around him in a circle like a proud hen and flapping her arms, lavishing him with praise for his unwavering loyalty to her. “Obscura is touched!” she hoots. “Brave Hineni! Loyal Hineni!” she hoots, continuing to dance a circle around him. Hineni doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the biggest reason he ignored the invitation was because he just didn’t want to leave the house. “Obscura brings gifts!” she says, holding out her hands. “THREE!” she hoots. Hineni stares down at her hands. “Obscura brings three frogs! THREE!” she says, extending the headless, eviscerated frogs out towards him.

 

“Uh…” Hineni rubs his head, taking the frogs. “Thank you.” He stares down at them, wondering how he’s going to get out of this. He’s certainly going to have to eat at least one. “…Want to eat them together?”

 

“WHOOOO~” Obscura, apparently embarrassed by his offer, vanishes in an explosion of feathers. Hineni shrugs, bringing the frogs to the kitchen. It has an ice-cellar, but there hasn’t been any actual ice down there in years. So in his own self-interest, he decides to just gut and cook the frogs right away to get it over with. At least this way, they’ll be palatable to him. He only needs to eat one, he’s sure he can get her to eat one too. The third one, he’ll say he’s saving for later. Hineni nods. This is a good plan.

 

He goes about it, finding it working out exactly as he had envisioned and then, one frog’s worth of meat fuller, he begins his forging work.

 

He’s always liked working with metal. There’s something simple about it. Something easy. Metal is a lot easier to work with than people are. It doesn’t ask any questions, it doesn’t stare and point or make any snide remarks, it doesn’t offer any cruelty that isn’t forced through it by another hand. A piece of metal is a piece of a metal at the end of the day, whether it’s a fork, a knife, a sword or a horseshoe. It’s just a thing.

 

That’s what makes it easy.

 

The hammer strikes out against the blade of the two-handed sword that he’s making at Obscura’s behest, it isn't an order from the guild. Sparks flying every which way as the hammer imprints itself into the glowing surface of the flattened iron, like a fingerprint left in wet dough. Each strike of the hammer, each shift of the metal over the old anvil, each twist and turn and strike and bend and blow is a unique signature of him as a craftsman. In metal, these impressions, these marks, they stick.

 

Hineni watches his arm swing in a rhythmic motion over and over, staring at the red-metal for far longer than he should without blinking. People who are imprinted on tend to shed these marks off of themselves after a while, or even just at the most convenient moment. Friendships end, loyalties favor. Something as simple as being scarred might lead to one being outcast from groups they were once a part of. An imprint will stay in a piece of metal until you try and hammer it out. But the imprint one person makes on another? Those can be erased, overwritten and forgotten in the blink of an eye.

 

He remembers as much. He used to have a lot of friends, before the incident. A lot of acquaintances. A lot of family. It only took one little spark and ‘poof’, like magic, all of those things were gone.

 

The man wipes his forehead on his shoulder, returning back to work a moment later to get his thoughts back to where he needs them to be.

 

Wood is fine for a lot of things. But wood only lasts so long. It’ll break sooner, rather than later. Plus it still veers more towards the ‘natural’ side of the world. Not to say that metal isn’t something natural, but… it just has a way of holding the ‘touch’ that one imparts on it longer. Metal doesn’t forget.

 

Literally. You take a cursed, wooden object and burn it in a fire, you got yourself a nice, cozy blaze to cook your stew over. But if you throw a cursed sword into a smelter and break it down, the metal will retain the curse and everyone who eats with the hundred forks made out of that sword is gonna have a real bad time. Hineni explains as much to Obscura, who is watching him work.

 

“That’s a real story by the way,” he says, looking her way for a second, before turning back and instinctively lowering his gaze. “The fork thing. A ton of people died.” She hoots, sitting up on the ledge, next to the metal owl that she has dragged back up to sit next to her.

 

Hineni lifts the blade of the two-handed sword up with a large pair of smith’s tongs, bringing it to the barrel of water. Today, he was going to make three big items. Three. A two handed sword, a war-hammer and a large battle-axe. Three. If only for the sake of diversity. Sure, daggers are cheap and easy. But he wants to get better at weaponsmithing too. It's a lot of work. Far more work than he would usually try to undertake in one night. It's honestly on the edge of impossible for his usual pace. But the truth is, despite his inward projected rant about people being untrustworthy, he still feels an odd desire to impress Obscura.

 

An hour later, the first weapon is complete.