Riftside 3 - Chapter 4

A calm settled over me as soon as I stepped through the doors of the Steel & Scale. My party’s house was home, but in many ways, so was this. An old home, but one that would never cease to be so.

The heat of the forge felt most familiar, the rhythmic clanging of hammer on steel a song that pushed out the memories of combat, and the hard labor one of creation, not destruction.

Pa and I were preparing materials when Torsten joined us in the smithy, the fruits of my previous battles laid out on nearby workbenches.

“Pa, Ash,” Torsten said, nodding to us, and then staring at Roq. “What can I do to help?”

Pa and I exchanged a glance, and I picked up Roq from where I’d placed him on top of Pa’s best anvil. Continuing to keep Torsten in the dark while he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with us was not only impractical, it was an insult.

“Today we’re making me a new weapon,” I said, resting Roq on my shoulder.

“Where’d you get that one?” Torsten asked.

“This old thing?” I asked.

“Hey. Not cool.”

“This is just my old hammer with a new look,” I said, ignoring Roq.

“How?” Torsten asked, coming over to look closely at Roq. “It looks completely reforged, but without a single seam?”

“About that,” I said. “I think it’s time we introduce you two.”

“Pa and I?” Torsten asked, confusion written on his face.

“The time for secrets among us is over,” I said. “Torsten, you’ve proven your loyalty and your skill, but do know secrets like these are carried to the grave. We trust you, and we like you, and Knut is like a brother to me. I hope you don’t take that for granted.”“Thanks?” he said, glancing between Pa and I. “I mean, of course I will keep any secret. You all took me in like family.” His voice wavered a bit as he was unsure what was to come.

“You’ve seen the gear we make,” Pa said. “How we seem to work faster and smarter than other forges.”

“I have,” Torsten admitted. “I assumed it was your father’s legendary smithing hammer, and your… unique talent for sniffing out gems.”

“Part of it is,” I said, hefting Roq. “The other part… is him.”

Torsten’s eyes flicked from me to the warhammer. “Him? The… the hammer?”

“Meet Roq, my soul weapon,” I said.

“S-s-soul weapon?” Torsten stammered and he took a step back. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Trust me, lad,” Pa said. “You don’t want Ash pulling your leg. He’d likely rip it straight off with the boost to his strength that crazy weapon of his give’s him.”

“I’m not crazy, Pa,” Roq said sounding mildly insulted. “I’m perfectly sane!”

“Which is what a crazy person would say,” Pa said and chuckled at my warhammer as I went and closed the smithy doors.

“What?” Torsten said.

“Oh, just talking to Roq,” Pa said.

“It talks, too?” Torsten asked, looking like he was about to collapse.

“Not only talks,” I said. “Yesterday Roq had his first breakthrough, and he is now level ten, which means he can do…this.” I tossed Roq into the air, expecting him to change dramatically into his Primal Form. Instead the weapon just clattered to the ground, making me look like a crazy person.

“Not funny. You’ll pay for that one.”

“So worth it. Just look at his face.”

I rolled my eyes.

Just as Torsten seemed like he’d managed to gather himself from my seemingly crazy outburst, Roq poofed into a puff of black smoke, only to be replaced by his primal form.

“Allow me to introduce myself, metal-pounder,” Roq’s voice boomed, and Torsten jumped back with a squeak. “I am Roq. Soul Weapon. King. And your new, infinitely superior, mentor.”

Torsten kept going until he hit the wall, just staring and pointing slack jawed at Roq.

“M-m-m-monster!”

“Soul weapon,” I said, placing a friendly hand on Roq’s shoulder, carefully avoiding his razor sharp arms.

A good while later and two cups of Pa’s happy juice, Torsten had been brought up to speed and calmed down enough for us to continue. Roq changing back to a warhammer had helped.

“I can’t believe I’ve been forging alongside a soul weapon,” he said from where he sat on the floor by a wall, tipping the last drop into his mouth and licking his lips.

“Arclight is a soul weapon, too,” I said, figuring it would be better to get it over with all in one go.

This time he just shrugged.

“Of course it is. Why not?” He looked up at me. “Does it speak, too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Though it’s a she, and only Eryn and I can hear her speak for now.”

“But you can both hear Roq?” he asked Pa.

“Yes, son, as of yesterday,” Pa said, finishing his own cup.

“As proof of my infinite generosity, and as a welcome to the inner circle of our pack, I shall grant you a boon, journeyman. You shall be… Ash, relay, please,” Roq said, and I did. “You shall be graced with the ability to hear my thoughts,” he continued. “A privilege, I assure you, few are worthy of.”

“It is a boon, but not one without a downside,” I added.

“Does he leech my life? Will I have horrendous dreams? Grow…extra limbs?” Torsten asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s just that he can be really annoying to listen to sometimes.”

“I am NOT annoying,” Roq said.

“Oh,” Torsten said.

I explained what the process would entail, and Knut’s brother looked between Pa and I, and then a manic grin spread across his face.

“You are really offering me a connection to a soul weapon? I wouldn’t be much of a smith if I didn’t accept wholeheartedly!” he said, letting out a semi-crazy laugh. “Go ahead!” He wiped his palm on his leather apron before holding out his hand.

Before he could change his mind I walked over and held Roq’s hilt out to him and he grasped it.

The moment his fingers touched the grip, he yelped, snatching his hand back. A tiny bead of blood welled in his palm.

“Testing, testing, one skull, two skulls… you can hear me now, can’t you, Torsten?” Roq said.

Torsten could only nod, speechless.

“Excellent,” Roq said. “With my guidance directly in your head, we should see a further increase to the quality of items forged! It shouldn’t take longer than…a few weeks to catch up with Ash. He is supremely lazy.”

Torsten’s shock slowly morphed into a smith’s deep, profound understanding.

His gaze shifted from Roq to Pa’s legendary hammer hanging on his belt, then to the nearly impossible materials laid out around us. “The gems…” he said. “The flawless forging… It’s not just skill, is it? It’s… a conversation. With the weapon.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Pa said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the real Steel & Scale, lad. Now, let’s get to work.”

“What are we forging?” Torsten asked.

“A secondary weapon for me,” I explained. “Roq being able to transform is new, and I need something to fight with when he’s in his primal form.”

“What type of weapon?” Torsten asked.

“Another hammer,” Roq stated firmly. “A smaller, less-impressive, but still suitably destructive Mini-Me.”

“Sure,” I said, laughing and opening the smithy doors again to let in some fresh air. “A one-handed hammer, anyway. I’d prefer something fast, so the style would be similar to Roq. Despite hitting like a siege weapon, he’s light. If it’s a heavy hammer it might throw me off.”

“I reckon I’ve got just the thing,” Pa said, cracking the knuckles of his leather-gloved hands as he strode over to where a piece of Quarris’ carcass lay. It was the size of a watermelon, and from its deep, vibrant, almost blood-red colour, I figured it came from near the monster’s core. “We’ll forge the head from this,” he said, and when he put a hand on it, the crystal pulsed with a faint inner light. “We’ll call it… Blisterbrand.”

“A silly name for an even sillier weapon,” Roq said. “It’ll be nothing but a flimsy toy. True power comes from overwhelming mass, of which I have plenty. Not pretty colors.”

“We’ll see what you think when it’s done,” Pa said with a grin that let me know this was something he’d been thinking of for a while and he patted the crimson Quarris’ crystal, the stone absorbing the sound with a dead thud. “Right then. Plan is we heat it, we hit it, we shape it into a hammerhead, and then slot in a few goodies, plus the haft. Simple.”

It was anything but, but between the four of us, I was pretty confident.

The crystal seemed to actively defy us. The heat from the experimental forge, hot enough to make steelhusk sweat and bend, seemed to slide right off, leaving it cool to the touch as soon as it was withdrawn. When Pa struck it with a testing tap, his hammer bounced off with a flat, unsatisfying clang, leaving not so much as a scratch.

“A fool’s errand,” Roq declared. “You seek to shape the unshapeable with muscle and fire. This overgrown rock candy will not yield a proper hammer’s head. Take it from an expert.”

Pa just grunted and scratched his beard.

“May I try?” Torsten asked Pa, full of a journeyman’s confidence.

“Go ahead,” Pa said, and Torsten took up his own hammer and swung hard.

The crack of impact was sharp, and Torsten yelped, dropping the hammer and shaking his hand, his arm vibrating from the shock.

The crystal remained pristine.

“Doesn’t work like any material I’ve worked with before,” Pa said. “Even the other Crystalkin.”

“That is because you treat it as a dead thing, when it is merely sleeping,” Lysander said, his voice infuriatingly calm. He leaned against the smithy’s doorway, arms crossed and smiling.

“You see it as material to be beaten into submission,” he continued, gesturing with a long, elegant finger. “But it is stone. Living stone. Treat it not like metal, but like wood. Stone has veins, lines of power. You do not break it. You must convince it to part.” He danced his way into the smithy. “A bowyer does not split a yew log with an axe. He coaxes it with a wedge and saw, following the grain. Find a fine-bladed saw, score it along its natural lines, and apply pressure. Then, my bearish and brutish friend, it will yield.”

Before I could fully process the arcane smithing advice, Ma appeared in the doorway to the shop, a warm smile on her face.

“Lysander, your wisdom is a balm, but my throat is parched. I’ve heard tales of a new tea shipment at the market, a silver-leaf blend from the southern highlands. Your palate is the only one in town I’d trust to judge its quality.”

Lysander’s eyes lit up, the philosopher instantly replaced by the connoisseur.

“Silver-leaf? You don’t say! An absolute necessity. Lead on, Helena! The forge’s mysteries can wait. A poor brew is a crime that cannot be ignored.”

He set off with Ma, his long strides full of purpose, as she looked back and threw us a wink. She’d bought us peace of mind to work freely.

Lysander’s words, however, had planted a seed. Veins of power. Convincing it to part.

“Roq,” I said. “Your spike. If I hold it against the crystal, and Pa taps you with Platemaw’s Fury… could you feel the crystal’s resonance? Kind of, you know, taste it, like you do monsters? Not to break it, but to map it?”

“At last, you grasp a sliver of my true potential!” Roq said, as if he hadn’t been lamenting the folly and futility of our work but until a minute ago. “Use my glorious form to reveal this bauble’s secrets! Let us see if it has any worth at all!”

I held Roq’s new, wicked spike against the side of the crystal.

“Gently, Pa.”

Pa nodded and raised his own legendary hammer, bringing it down on Roq’s flat face with a light tap. The impact produced a deep, resonant hum from the crystal.

“It speaks,” Roq said. “Well, it whispers, anyway. A map of its flaws, and its strengths, few though they are. Quick, now. Strike where I tell you.”

Guided by Roq’s mental direction, Pa and I worked in a seamless, rhythmic tandem. I’d press Roq’s spike to a precise point on the crystal, and Pa would strike with Platemaw’s Fury, each blow sharp, controlled, and perfectly placed. With each impact, the crystal’s hum changed until with a final, resonant crack, a side of the crystal split. It didn’t shatter, but parted cleanly along a flawless plane.

“By the forge’s fire…” Torsten breathed, his eyes wide. “It worked. You are a genius, Roq!”

I groaned.

“And you are smarter than you look,” Roq replied.

We repeated the process, Roq mapping the crystalline structure and Pa and I making the precise, resonant strikes. Slowly, piece by piece, a rectangular hammerhead took shape, the crystal catching and reflecting light.

“The balance is atrocious,” Roq said as we worked. “It’s too light. With this weight you’ll get the speed, but no righteous, skull-crushing impact! And the color… far too flashy. A weapon should inspire terror, not be fit to decorate a mate’s lower earlobe. It needs steelhusk and the memory of dried blood!”

Torsten’s face blanched a bit at that, but once the head was shaped, we set about the even more delicate task of hollowing out two small, sealed chambers within the crystal itself.

“Holes?” Roq demanded, but Pa ignored him, a secretive smile on his lips. “You are weakening it! What foolishness is this?”

From a heavily reinforced box, Pa produced two items.

“For the first hole I’ve got a piece of Ironroot Golem heartwood,” he said, carefully fitting it into one chamber. “That is for heat.” Into the second hole, he carefully poured a viscous, green liquid. “Acid from the Saprotic Lurker, the slug monsters which attacked Sentinel Station,” he said. “Got some from Victor, together with…this.” Before the acid could eat through the crystal, he added a pinch of powder, and the acid ceased its sizzle, settling into a placid, emerald pool. Then Pa capped both holes with steelhusk bands that ran around the weapon and along each edge, reducing the chance of it shattering.

The haft was a work of art in itself. The core was a length of Platemaw bone, nearly unbreakable, and Pa layered it with pieces of the Juggernaut’s armor he had left. Then Torsten wrapped the grip Arclight’s sinew, all the while wincing from a faint static crackling.

When Pa seated the crystal head onto the finished haft, the fit seemed perfect.

All that remained was the final tap to set the pieces.

“Son? You want to do the honor?” Pa asked, looking down at the nearly finished weapon resting on the workbench.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said with a smile. “Though, Roq, would this be a good time to test that little ring you’ve got around your haft?”

“If you must,” he said.

“What? The great and mighty Roq is reluctant to show off?” I asked, tongue in cheek, holding up the warhammer.

“You make an excellent point,” Roq said. “Pa, metal-pounder, observe.”

With a mental command and a quick twist, I separated Roq’s haft into two, turning from a two-handed warhammer with superior reach and impact, to a significantly easier to wield one-hander. I stored the other part of his haft.

“Never seen that before,” Torsten said.

“But you will again,” Pa said, rubbing his hands together, “Because we are stealing, I mean learning from Roq, and allowing ourselves to be  inspired by that design.”

With a chuckle, I lined up Roq on the new hammer.

“Don’t mess this up now. Even though it is an inferior piece and hardly worth my time, I do feel an obligation to make it the least subpar it can be.”

With just the right amount of force, I hammered the haft home, and my eyes went wide as orange light bathed the hammer.

“Legendary!” we all shouted in unison, and I gave Pa a big hug, careful not to knock his brains out with Roq.

“Acceptable.”

I picked it up and checked its stats.

NAME: Blisterbrand

WEAPON CLASS: One-Handed Hammer

ATTACK SPEED: Fast

RANGE: Short

Rarity: Legendary

+7 Strength

+3 Agility

ABILITIES:

NAME: Boil and Blight

TYPE: Passive

DESCRIPTION: One striking face of the hammer is infused with fire, the other with acid. Hits apply a searing burn or a corrosive decay, dealing damage over time and weakening armor.

NAME: Quarris’s Resonance

TYPE: Active

DESCRIPTION: Hammer sends out pulses of resonant energy. For a short time, the wielder senses the location of nearby enemies.

NAME: Brand of Pain

TYPE: Passive

DESCRIPTION: Each consecutive hit on a single target applies a brand. Upon the third brand, the next hit triggers a violent detonation of fire and acid, dealing area-of-effect damage.

“This is perverse,” I muttered, eyeing the hammer.

“It’s a masterpiece, you runt,” Pa hissed and slapped the back of my head.

“Hit him harder! He’s looking at it as if he’s lovestruck! Pa! Do it!” Roq cried mockingly.

“It’s nearly as light as Roq,” I said, not exaggerating in the least.

One face of the hammerhead burned with hot flames, while the other dripped with a slow, corrosive acid.

“Ma and Erynare going to kill you before the monsters do if you walk around dripping acid all over the floor,” Pa said with a laugh.

“Just stash it away. I’m not looking for a new wielder just yet,” Roq said, and I found he was right.

With a bit of focused will, I could suppress the effects, the flames and drip fading until I willed them back.

“A passable trinket,” Roq said, though I could tell he grudgingly admired the craftsmanship. It was all in his tone. “It may serve as a suitable support weapon. For me, of course. A distraction while I, the true instrument of war, deliver the decisive blows. Ohh! Yes, you can use it to open up with a hammer to the face, and then I will finish them off!”

“Of course,” I said. “Merely the distraction.” I winked at Pa, secretly wondering just how much trouble Roq would be once I got a few killing blows with this.

Next up we worked on Knut’s new axe, which Pa had on backlog from way too long.

Using the same sonic resonance technique, we cleaved a heavy, bearded axe head from a slab of Quarris’s densest plating. For the haft, Pa was obsessive.

“Not losing my beard over a stupid bet and a broken haft,” he muttered.

Once again we made the core from Platemaw thigh bone, which we carefully filled with shimmering, semi-liquid Ruptureborn marrow. The haft was then wrapped in tough, pale Shardfang sinew.

Torsten got the honor of completing the weapon, with Pa having to stuff his hands underneath his armpits to keep from grabbing Platemaw’s Fury from his apprentice’s hands. Purple light lit up the room, and we celebrated once again.

NAME: Shard of the Fallen King

WEAPON CLASS: One-Handed Axe

ATTACK SPEED: Fast

RANGE: Short

Rarity: Epic

+8 Strength

ABILITIES:

NAME: King’s Rebuke

TYPE: Active

DESCRIPTION: Strike your target with a wide arcing cleave that deals tremendous damage.

NAME: Mountain’s Wrath

TYPE: Active

DESCRIPTION: A single, devastating overhead blow that can cut even the toughest opponents in two.

The rest of the day continued in a blur of creation.

For Nabeeh, we carved a long staff core from a piece of one of Quarris’ legs, which Pa would take to the staff maker later to be fitted with the last of Arclight’s lightning globules.

For Eryn, we used the soft, silvery under-fur of Arclight to line her gloves, granting her resistance to cold and a boost to her agility.

Name: Brambleback Arc Bracers

Type: Bracers

Rarity: Epic

+3 Vitality

+4 Agility

ABILITIES:

1. Quick Draw+ - Allows the wearer to draw much faster, be it a weapon, a potion, or a projectile.

2. Arc Dampener - Negates all incoming lightning damage to the user

As the day wound down, Pa picked up Knut’s finished axe, staring at its razor edge. His face was solemn, his earlier joviality gone.

“Look at this,” he said, his voice low and heavy. “Platemaw bone. Quarris plate. Arclight sinew. Each piece of this… it came from monsters that had slain adventurers. Well, perhaps not the Platemaw, but the others for sure. These aren’t just weapons. They’re memorials. Forged from blood and sacrifice. Never forget that.”

“Nah. Wasn’t close.”

“True,” I said to Pa, putting a hand on his shoulder, because he was right, and ignored Roq.

Every victory, every piece of powerful gear, was built on the remains of monsters that could just as easily have killed us as we did them.

“Thank you,” Torsten said.

“For?” I asked.

“Everything? Letting me come here. Accepting me into your family. By the bells, for letting me be part of forging legendary gear! It might be as a footnote beneath Thomas Tharen, and rightly so, but if I’m not mistaken, the name of Torsten Steelwall is going into the annals as his apprentice on a few new recipes.”

“Yes,” Pa said, nodding to himself, smiling yet again. “Yes it is.”

I went and picked up my new hammer, and stood in the middle of the forge, Blisterbrand in my left and Roq, as a one-hander, in my right.

“This feels…” I gave them a few swings. The balance was strange, but not unmanageable. A slow grin spread across my face. “Right.”

“Oh?” Pa said. “Right for what?”

“I think,” I announced, “I’m going to use both.”

“DUAL-WIELDING?!” Roq shouted in outrage, making me wince. “With that… that glowing bauble? Have you lost your mind, my wielder? The sheer, unmitigated indignity. The betrayal! The—”

Whatever he had planned to say next was lost, because even Roq shut up when he heard the bells ring out across Dawnwatch.