Chapter 63: Chapter 63: A token prize has been created. The year of the frog will soon arrive. Beware. Five.

It’s a far more intricate process than what he’s used to doing.

 

Usually, hammering away and smashing things into place is more of Hineni’s typical style of crafting. But the process for these specific items is far more artistic.

 

The man sits on the floor, hunched over as he works, using a bunch of ingots as a low-standing table.

 

He cracks his neck.

 

They really ought to get some chairs for the forge, but then again, they’ve never needed any until now.

 

And maybe having chairs around will lower their productivity? Then again, Sockel has a chair that she sits on for most of the day and she’s plenty productive.

 

Honestly, he doesn’t know. So he makes a mental note to ask Seltsam to look up the effect of chairs on productivity for him tomorrow.

 

Hineni lifts the metal rod, hammering it into the orichalcum again, to start deepening the indent more, so that it looks like the picture in the book, which he has open next to himself. The hardest part of the project was cutting out the rough shape of the whole thing. A skull isn’t exactly round and it isn’t exactly anything. There’s kind of an oval-like structure, but then there’s something more rectangular at the bottom-front for the jaw and making that out of metal is a challenge that he hadn’t been expecting to face.

 

But perhaps this is exactly what he needs, to develop more as a craftsman?

 

He needs to leave his comfort zone of swords and axes and start making real, challenging things again.

 

Hineni hammers away, awash in the mild glow of the fire.

 

---

 

“What’s your problem?” barks Eilig’s voice.

 

Hineni, his eyes dry and heavy, turns to look at the fairy. “Eilig,” says Hineni. “What’s up?”

 

“What’s up is that you’re making a ruckus and I can hear it all the way downstairs!” she yells at him. “I can’t sleep!”

 

Hineni blinks. “Sleep?” he asks. “Is it still nighttime?”

 

“What? Of course it’s still nighttime, dummy!” she snaps. He notices that she isn’t wearing her dress, given that she’s more or less just her usual shape of a semi-invisible blob. Presumably, she’s using the same reasoning that he had used against Selstam earlier.

 

He’s surprised though. He’s been so immersed in his work, that he was sure it would be a new day by now. But apparently, it’s still the same night.

 

He sighs. “Sorry, Eilig, I’ll…” He lowers the hammer. “Wait a minute.” Hineni turns his head to look at the fairy. “You can’t hear the forge down in the ice-cellar.”

 

The fairy’s wings buzz in agitation. “Shut up! Go to bed, you weirdo!” she says. “Like all of the normal people.”

 

Hineni rubs his face, smearing some metal-oil and some slivers onto himself by mistake. But he’s too tired to care. “Why is everyone lying so much lately?” he asks.

 

“Lying?” asks the fairy, sharply. She flies closer towards him. “You’re a weirdo and that’s the truth.”

 

Hineni shakes his head, understanding. “Thanks for worrying about me, Eilig,” he says. “I’m fine. I just got kind of obsessed with this project,” he says, pointing down at the half-finished orichalcum skull.

 

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The fairy flies up away from him, having perhaps learned her lesson about being too close to him. “As if I would worry about you. My life would be five times better if you hadn’t come back!”

 

“You were dead before I came back, Eilig,” states Hineni.

 

“Exactly!” she exclaims. “Go to sleep,” says the fairy, buzzing away, back up towards the heating shaft.

 

Hineni watches her go.

 

She has her difficulties with being nice. But it’s nice that so many people are worried about him.

 

Perhaps it’s a little selfish to make them worry like this, honestly?

 

He looks back down at the skull.

 

The skull looks back up at him, its half hewn eyes glimmering in the vague firelight.

 

Hineni lifts the chisel and returns to his work.

 

---

 

“Wow, you look like shit,” says Sockel.

 

Finally, some honesty.

 

Hineni sits there, hunched over, rubbing the orichalcum skull with a rag. He had spent all night carving it, forming it, detailing it and now, polishing it.

 

“I pulled an all-nighter,” says Hineni, yawning. “Just taking some inspiration from your old work-ethic.”

 

“Old?” she asks incredulously. “I still work my butt off here too, you know?” she asks. “I just don’t have to pull double shifts anymore all the time.”

 

“Sorry,” says Hineni. “I didn’t mean it like that, Sockel,” he says, lifting the skull up. “You do great work here and I really appreciate it. Thank you.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Put a shirt on, work hours are starting,” she says. “You know the rules.”

 

Hineni sighs, slowly becoming too tired to argue. As a professional shady-type, Sockel certainly knows how to accurately time her attacks. He reaches over, grabbing his shirt, that he had thrown off the night before, and crudely puts it back on.

 

She turns her head, looking at the shield, propped up by the door. “I mean, I guess it was a success,” she says. “But we just made thirty-thousand Obols last night. We’re not hurting for money, are we?” she asks. Sockel narrows her eyes. “You’re not financing a second wife in secret, right?”

 

Hineni rolls his eyes. “I’m a one-woman man, Sockel,” says Hineni. “As if I have the energy for two.”

 

“I won’t tell her you said that,” replies the elf.

 

Hineni drops the greasy rag, lifting up the skull to show her. “It’s not about the money, Sockel,” explains Hineni. “It’s about the job.”

 

 

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