78 Forge

"Here, I uh... Brought your ring back."

Emp was currently facing Willow, frozen in place like an idiot.

The whole group of friends had come together in the backyard of Marcy's forge to train and chat. He had been showing the guys how to hold their weapons properly and how to stand with them in order to not fall over if they got tackled. Since they had already practiced for months by now, they were much better than in the beginning. Emp was confident they would be able to protect themselves if anything happened, at least until someone came to help them.

He was currently showing them some more complex tricks they would probably never use just for the fun of it. That was when the girls showed up surrounding someone else like a wall. All the boys had stopped practicing to look at what they were doing and when the girls were sure that no one could spy on them from the street, they freed the person in their midst.

It had been Willow, out of her house for the first time in months... The guys gasped and Gilbert even stepped back when they saw her huge belly.

Two thoughts appeared in Emp's head in very quick succession. The first was; "How much did she eat?" followed almost instantly by "That's not fat! That's a baby!"

Aside from her large round belly and the posture she adopted to accommodate it, she seemed just like usual. She wore a wide dress with a second skirt under, probably because nothing else would fit her current form. Her face showed resignation and a wry smile answered the reactions of everyone.

He had believed she was sick but had it really been the case? She seemed very healthy for a sick person, was she jut hiding from them?

"Is it Chase's?"

After Manley blurted out those words, everyone held their breaths. They all expected the same answer but all hoped for her it wasn't truly the case.

"Yes. We did it only once but... We just didn't think..."

Now, the question on everyone's mind was; "What will you do now?" but no one had the guts to ask it out loud. None of them had any idea about what would happen to her and the little one, they only knew it would not be easy.

The whole group felt a cold air surround them. None of them knew what to say. It seemed the girls had already known but they they waited patiently for someone to break the ice before they said anything. It was likely that they would attempt to help their friend somehow and scold the boys if they said something insensitive.

The group of boys now stood in a difficult situation. Emp did not want to say anything that might be offensive or idiotic in this situation and he knew it was very likely to happen since he was far from prepared for this and wasn't good at talking in general. Instead of opening his mouth, he looked towards Calla for help. She was the girl he knew most in the village aside from his mother. If one of them was to help, it would be her.

She shot a smile his way but didn't tell him how he was supposed to react or what he was supposed to say.

He resolved that it was best to say nothing and let the others find something to say by themselves. After all, it had nothing to do with him. As long as he didn't say a thing, everything would be fine.

That was at that point that Willow stepped his way and extended the ring in front of him. It had turned back to its simple iron state.

"Here, I uh... Brought your ring back."

She must have known the others would react strangely to her and had found something to bring up in case it became to awkward. Emp thought it was clever but this put him in a though spot. He chose to ignore the special circumstances and just act as if everything was normal. It might not be the best reaction but it was the best he could come up with.

He did not make a move to take it back and instead just told her directly that she could keep it.

"The ring I gave you at the new year? You didn't have to bring it back, you can just keep it, it's yours."

"But, wasn't it magic?"

"Yes, I gave it to you because you are a friend and I was worried about you. If I had wanted it back, I would have come to get it a while ago. It's already been so long, I thought it was obvious."

She still seemed very unsure about this and some of the others seemed to think there was something more to it that he was hiding. He had to explain further.

"Look, if you don't want it, you can just throw it away or give it to someone else. Those rings aren't worth anything at all, I can just make as many as I want."

He showed her by creating five new copies of the ring out of thin air.

"In fact, I planned to give some of them to the others too if they wanted one. It won't really help anyone get out of trouble but if they're lucky, I'll notice something is wrong before it's too late and come to help."

He turned towards the boys at his side, showing them the rings.

"Any of you want one?"

All of them shook their heads. The scene unfolding in front of them seemed so strange that they didn't know what to think about it.

He turned towards the girls next.

"You all?"

Most of them shook their head too but Calla fidgeted on the spot instead. She had not answered aloud but it was clear she wanted one.

"Here, put it on, everyone will see I'm not lying then."

He presented her one of the rings and Calla extended her finger, pointing one towards the ring instead of taking it. Did she want him to put it on her finger? He shrugged internally and slid the ring in place. A split second later, the iron ring turned into solid gold, with a ruby shaped like an apple peeking behind two leaves of emerald concealing most of it.

"Wow, It's just like the first time!"

"That one is way prettier though." The other girls pointed out.

Calla was beaming which warmed up Emp's heart. Her ring seemed less complex than some of the other rings he gave but it was in no way less impressive than the others. It's simplicity was a good match for her and the leaves hiding the shy apple were so detailed they seemed to be almost as alive as the crystal lotuses leaves.

He tore his eyes away from her smile and asked again if anyone else wanted one. No one was up for it.

"Not even you Gilbert?"

"Nah, rings aren't for guys like us. Plus, I feel like it would upset her if I took one."

Emp didn't get it but since he couldn't convince anyone else to take one, he placed all the spares in his bag. It would have been easier for him if they just took them. After all, the more of them wore those rings, the easier it would be to tell if something went wrong in the village.

He had not given them the rings earlier because he had forgot. He had been wounded for a while and then punished and pushed to work hard to apologize to Marcy and then the miners came and so on.

Since he was thinking about it now, he'd at least give one to his mom later when he went back inside.

"So there you have it. You don't need to give it back. Don't wear it if you don't want, do whatever you want with it, it's really yours."

"Thanks..."

She did not put the ring back on but placed it in her purse. Everyone had been distracted by the ring story for a while and things seemed to be more casual for a few minutes after that. The group talked about some things she had missed while she was hiding in her house and in return, they asked questions like when would the small one be born and how she intended to name it.

According to her, the baby should be born any day now. She had not decided how she wanted to call the newborn yet. Emp felt that if it was to be born so soon, she should have thought about it before but on the other hand, he was sure she would come up with a better name than what the gods usually gave.

Aside from that, she told them how Chase's family didn't want to help with the baby. They told her mother that since they had not been married, the kid she was carrying was none of their business. They didn't want to look after an infant who's father died in his first hunt.

It was true it was their grand-kid but neither Chase nor Willow had respected the rules and they couldn't afford to take care of the girl and her baby on top of their own family. This wasn't all that uncommon in the Steelwood empire. The ties between true family members were often more important than blood ties. Sisters of marriage relied more on each-other than their blood relatives and people often only cared about their immediate household, ignoring the problems of relatives when they found them too bothersome. Galana had fallen victim to the same kind of treatment in the past.

For Chase's family, Willow should live with the consequences of her own poor choices. Meanwhile, they would grieve for Chase and go on with their lives, he was sadly just a failed son.

This meant that she would have to find someone else or go on alone.

Everything ended up becoming awkward again because no one knew how to help. If she had been good with a crossbow, Emp might have proposed she join the huntresses who would surely help her but he could hardly picture her fighting anything at all. Even less so with a baby in her arms. He had no idea what she should do.

Once no one knew what to say anymore, she complained about her back and the sole of her feet and decided to go back home. After she had left with her large escort of girls, the guys all looked at each other with a sour face.

"How do we help her?" Asked Emp first.

There was no doubt she would need some help, she wouldn't be enough alone.

"We don't." Stated Wilbert. "If any of us help, she'll cling to him and try to get engaged. I don't dislike her but... I mean, I guess I'll want my own kids rather than taking care of Chase's."

Manley made a face of disgust but made no comment. He had been adopted after all so hearing one of his friends saying something like that must have been a bit strange.

"Not only that but I'd feel weird doing it. Wouldn't it feels like I'm stealing her away form Chase?" Gilbert asked.

"He's dead, you're not stealing her from anyone." Manley pointed out.

"What, you'd do it?" He asked in return.

"Maybe... I don't know. I never looked at her that way before."

The others nodded, they had always thought of her as a friend first and then, Chase's girlfriend. None of them really wanted to stand as the second pick, "Chase's replacement".

"If at least she liked one of us, it'd be easier. Even if we really wanted to take her now, we'd only be seen as having taken pity on her."

"Is it bad?" Emp asked.

"I don't know."

"We should ask our parents."

"It is bad because if it happens again, they'll turn to the mercy guy to take the next one in too. I'm sure when the news spread through the village, everyone will turn towards Manley's dad to take her and her kid."

"And even Willow will only see it as mercy rather than love. I'm sure she'd continue to lament over Chase until her death."

"But what do you all want to do about it then?"

The boys continued to argue for a long time but none of them came with a good answer. Only Manley said he'd think about it seriously while he would be working the next day.

The training session had been cut short but they weren't really in the mood to swing fake swords any longer.

Since that was the case, Emp went back to Marcy's side and left the others to their own tasks.

His adoptive mother was busy making pickaxe heads for the miners.

The guys Juniper had sent to collect the crystal had arrived a few weeks ago and were busy mining away in the cave. They worked hard but still swarmed the small village by their numbers.

Most villagers thought that this many strangers was annoying but it was worse for Marcy. Because of them, she had been swamped in work. Those guys were equipped with low quality iron picks because they never thought that the crystal would be this hard to collect. The result was that they kept breaking their pickaxes and had to ask the only smith in town to repair or replace them.

Of course, Emp helped a lot too. Aside from the breaks he took to teach the others how to use swords properly, he was always in here with her making some of the picks in her stead.

All that work did bring her a lot of money but her supply of iron was dwindling at an abnormal pace to replace the bits they somehow lost in the cave. Because of this and her very busy schedule, they did not find the time yet to make Emp a new armor or use the remains of the monster for anything.

"Mom, I'm back."

"Hi, give me a hand will ya? Tell me when it's hot enough."

She did not look his way but used her hand to beckon him to the furnace where she was heating one of those pick heads. Emp put on the thick gloves and took her place holding the long pincers reaching into the furnace.

Marcy backed away from the furnace to cool herself off a bit, sitting down on a chair. While she was relaxing, Emp used his left hand to reach his bag and got one of the rings out.

"Willow reminded me, I wanted to give you one of these."

He checked his ring regularly but forgot to give out more of them almost immediately after, every single time. He would check on the others, think of how he wanted to give some to his friends and then go to sleep only to forget about the matter.

Marcy reached out to grab it and dropped it on the table at her side for later.

"Willow? You've seen the lass, she finally came out?"

"Yeah, she came here today to meet with everyone. She's pregnant."

"What? But she... Chase?"

Marcy was really surprised to hear that it seemed.

"Yeah, that's what she told us. Chase's family won't help though."

"I wouldn't expect them to... She hid it well, is that the reason she didn't go out all this time?"

"I guess so. Is there a way we can help?"

"We don't need to. I'm sure the boys reacted in panic for now, they're scared of the kid and most of them haven't even had their first hunt but one of them will break sooner or later and take her in. She isn't a bad girl after all and not an ugly one either. She'll have it though for a while but if she can take good care of the baby, one of them will fall. They wouldn't be able to let someone they know so well suffer. Dark-glint would never let one of its own fall like that anyway."

Marcy had a rather optimistic view over this whole debacle. Emp felt much better now. If Marcy said she'd be fine then she would, there was nothing to worry about, Willow would be alright. He sent his attention back to the furnace.

"It's ready." He said.

Marcy stretched herself and came back to pick up the piece of hot iron. She was just softening the blunted point to hammer it back in shape instead of grinding it down. She brought the weak metal over her anvil using the pincers and started stretching it into a sharper point with many vigorous hammer strikes.

Emp watched her work for a while before he decided to speak about something else.

"Gilbert still wants to become your apprentice."

"Wanting it doesn't mean it's going to happen. Here, heat it again, ya do the next set of strokes."

Emp placed back the lump of cooled iron into the furnace. He was glad they were still in winter. In the empire, the temperature never went bellow the freezing point except on some very rare nights in winter but the days were still a lot cooler than in summer. This was the perfect time to work the forge for a long stretch of time.

"What will he do instead though?"

"I don't know, I don't need another apprentice and I still think he isn't fit for it. He needs to give up and do something worthwhile instead. Even if his sister tries to sway us with her food for years it will never work."

"You think he's going to resent me for this?"

"Maybe but he's more reasonable than Sophus, he will understand that even if ya weren't there it would not happen."

Sophus had still not given up. Either for wooing Marcy or chasing Emp away, he was still attempting to do both. Now that Emp had helped with the unnameable of chaos and had already been here for almost two years though, his campaign had lost a lot of traction. Only a few still agreed with his views, those were the people that just hated strangers and Vesa's mother.

Emp had hoped that he would give up but he didn't and instead, kept observing him to find something to badmouth him. That was pitifully pathetic, even if he did find something, by now, the others knew about his irrational dislike of Emp, there would be no one to listen.

Leaving the petty mage out of his mind, Emp continued to work with Marcy until late in the evening.

"Tomorrow, we're starting work on yar armor." Marcy said as they left the workshop.

"Really?"

Emp was very pleased to hear that, he looked forward to seeing what she would do.

"You got an idea of what to do?" He asked.

"Yeah, I was inspired by the stuff ya brought back and so I had some interesting metals delivered here from my brother. The merchant came back from Redwater today, he brought a lot of good stuff."

Those merchant probably carried a letter from Galana too but he'd only see it once they arrived in Bêtéclair.

More to the point, he wondered what sort of material she had bought.

Emp rarely felt this excited about something and so had a hard time falling asleep. It did not stop him from oversleeping though and Marcy had to wake him up forcefully.

"Hey, Emp! Wake up ya lazy slag, we got work to do and the lass is here with our breakfast already."

After getting kicked out of bed and a short but delicious breakfast, he stepped into the workshop with Marcy.

"Lass, we'll be doing something big today, we don't want to be disturbed. Tell that to yar bro or something."

Calla just nodded and left with her empty basket.

Emp wanted to ask Marcy what the miners would do without her but he knew that she would just answer something like "May the forest take them away, I don't care."

Marcy then locked them both up inside the workshop. When she was like that, she often stayed in there overnight but Emp knew that making something like a heavy armor would take far more than a single day to create. Just processing the metals alone would take one or two days with their "small" furnace, the monster materials would take an additional few days, the real crafting and forging about half a week and then, if she wanted to place enchantments on it, it would take even longer. The conclusion he came up with was that there was no way she would stay here the whole time.

Inside, she had already brought all she thought they would need for making the armor, she must have woken up way earlier than him. There were a bunch of parts from the monster including its horns, skin and bones but there was also a good amount of raw ore. Most of that ore seemed to be iron.

"Isn't that just Iron? I thought you said you had a lot of good stuff delivered." Asked Emp, puzzled.

"I have, this isn't just simple iron ore, this is turtle-iron brought from the mines of Asdiold, all the way north in the Jorkovian empire. This thing doesn't rust, is ever so slightly harder than ordinary iron and lighter too. We're going to mix it with the small amount of blood-iron I could find and a good chunk of that normanic-Iron here. We're making a steel alloy with all of them today so you better be ready for the heat. Fetch the fuel while I set up the crucible, we'll melt it all down again and again until we get something good."

So they were about to make steel out of them. All of those metals had been described to him before by her but he had never seen them for real. He knew their characteristics very well and he couldn't wait to see what they would do once combined. Looking at them closer he could see some very small differences in the three ore. The blood-iron had a weak red tint while the normanic-iron had a similar blue tint, the turtle-iron was fairly ordinary at a glance.

As for their properties, Emp knew that pure blood-iron could absorb the blood it came in contact with to grow and make more of itself while the normanic-iron was heavier than normal but ridiculously hard to bend when "cold". The alloy resulting from the three was very famously known as soaked-cold steel.(1)

They got to work immediately and progressed slowly. They smelted everything and repeated the process a few times to get the purest iron possible before melting the whole thing down together to form their alloy. With the amount of raw ore Marcy had bought, they ended up with quite a few bars ready to be made into something useful.

The bones were carved up in the shapes she wanted using her good tools, the skin was processed by Emp, the metal was forged by the two, things were tested and scrapped, others were kept, they continued working until late in the night every day for the better part of a month.

Marcy kept complaining how he didn't have any creativity.

"What will ya do once I'm not there to tell ya what to do anymore? You need to listen to yar instincts and the materials, there's something great to be made here, don't just make a boring armor like the dozens ya can see everywhere. Ya have to go beyond that when ya make something, see beyond the obvious and reach for the genius instead."

Emp wasn't good at that sort of things but Marcy was and she was very talkative on what she felt was his biggest weak-point in this field. The whole time she talked though, she kept tweaking things, drawing some sketch and starting over to reach the best result she could from what she had at hand.

In the end, she made something anyone else would have found inconceivable. She made a whole set of plate armor using the polished bones of the creature and after throwing all of it in her furnace, forged, or rather, melted, the soaked-cold steel on top of it, covering it like a second layer. The bones made the main structure of the armor while the steel acted as some sort of skin over it and kept all the bones welded together.

The hardest part of it, the horns, were turned into a thick pair of vambrace with the surplus painstakingly removed and used as reinforcements into the breastplate.

The new armor didn't look anything like the old one. This one was steel smooth with a natural purple tint to it because of the mix between the blood-iron and the normanic-iron. The new thing was bulkier and harder to move in because each piece was made to cover as much as possible, even the articulations had their own plates covering the gaps in the main ones.

He had already been complaining about how hard his armor was to put on but this one would be a thousand times worse. With the leather and the mail under the plates, it weighted a ton and he felt the inside was as hot as their furnace but Marcy said she'd fix that with a few runes.

Every individual piece of the armor had to be engraved by the runes, each of them were carefully integrated into the design and Marcy spent a great amount of time embossing them in the company of beasts and arabesques to mask them in fancy artwork.

She even applied some lacquer in places and gilded the borders of every pieces. His armor ended up being the most impressive work of art he had ever seen. He did not know of a painting or a sculpture that was this breathtaking. Even then, she told him it wasn't her best work, she had done way better many times. No wonder she was a legendary smith, she wasn't just a craftsman, she was an inspired artist as well.

While they were doing all that, Emp had to work double the time because not only did he need to help making the armor, he also needed to do the usual work they were given, like fixing the tools of everyone else.

It took so long to make that they missed the birth of Willow's baby, he heard it was a girl and she named her Shana. They heard of it only when school Emp finally got the elixirs from the black tulips of the crystal spring and went out to bring it to the huntresses.

He had found the best alchemist in Bêtéclair and went to meet him for the elixirs. He had decided to trust him after an interview and the approval of both Celtine and Fonao the fwan who Heinrich had dispatched for the purpose of making sure the man was as good as he pretended.

He observed the whole process carefully because he had not wanted to be cheated out of some of that elixir but the man was honest and after paying with one whole crystal plate, he received the thirty-eight bottles of elixir he had paid for. Each unit of the precious elixir was contained in a thick glass bottle enclosed by a cork and a good amount of wrapping over it to secure it firmly.

Emp only had three, now two, crystal plates, each worth ten thousand gold coins so it was officially the most costly thing he had ever paid for.

Once he had all those elixirs, the him from the village brought them to the huntresses like he had promised. He wanted to give one elixir to each and everyone of them but Connie refused to waste some on the badly wounded who would probably not go on any hunt again in the future. This meant that he used only eighteen, he had twenty remaining and one of them was for himself.

After he had told them what those tulips were, Tacey had been very glad that she had not eaten one of them but it seemed she still had no fear of the deadly poison. Tacey made herself into the test subject and drank the thing in front of everyone. She downed it like a drunkard downs mead and everyone awaited some sort of reaction from her.

"Taste's fishy." She complained.

Aside from her words the only visible reaction was that all her exposed skin became flushed as if she had a high fever. She did not complain of any discomfort and after a few minutes, her skin went back to normal.

"Do you feel any different?" Asked Emp, curious.

"No, not at all."

"Maybe it takes some time to take effect?" Wondered Connie.

"Or maybe it worked perfectly and she's already augmented." Jaska countered. "What was it supposed to do again? Improve the speed and flexibility? How about you make a lap around the village to see."

Tacey shrugged and started running. The results were underwhelming, nothing seemed different in any way.

Supposing Connie was right, they waited a few day to see and effectively, the results were earth-shattering.

Tacey said herself that she felt much lighter.

"It feels a bit as if I was in a dream, it's like just a push of my feet could have me jump several meters in the air."

Her movement speed greatly increased, her jumps height and length both almost doubled, flexibility exercises felt easier than ever to her and her equipment felt much lighter than usual. Even her skin seemed smoother than before, as if it had been polished with care. (2)

Seeing the incredible results, the other active huntresses hurriedly drank their own and Emp did the same. The smell of the dark purple liquid was fruity but Tacey was right, it tasted like fish.

Emp felt a heat wave spread from his stomach to all over his body and saw his skin flush just like Tacey but the sensation quickly faded. What was left was only to wait for the miracle to take place.

In the mean time, the other him also had Celtine drink one because he felt that it might help the problem of her race having brittle bones. He did not fear it would make her heavier since the drink was supposed to make her lighter in the end. He had now only eighteen elixirs remaining. He decided to wait before he gave more to anyone else.

Only after all that and a lot more work and magic was the armor finally finished. The runes were imbued in magu by Heinrich instead of Sophus because Emp had no trust in the village mage. The best and simplest way to describe the final result would be to say that it looked powerful and dignified, knightly and intimidating.

There were no pieces out of place but the ornaments on it made it seem like something one of the personal guards of the emperor himself would wear to impress the gallery. The armor was enchanted with cooling runes to strengthen the effects of the normanic-iron and make it more comfortable, runes to protect the wearer against curses and raw magu as well as a set of complicated runes to stop the armor from absorbing too much blood and get out of shape.

The things was more than solid enough, should not splinter even if pressed strongly, could repair itself, could not rust, was comfortable and incredibly good looking. A true work of art and a majestic piece of equipment.

As icing to the cake, Marcy had taken into account that he was still not done growing and had made the pieces that could not be easily adjusted bigger than they should.

This was the best thing Emp had ever been given or had ever worked on. He couldn't wait to show it to the others back in school.

***

(1) World building time folks. If you're interested on the how and why of those special metals, read on but be warned, it's complicated.

The people of this world just consider all those as different metals, they aren't really. This is about the influence of magu. Look at the periodic table and then imagine it was 3d instead. The dept of it is determined by the number of protons and neutrons corrupted by magu. To be clear, lets take hydrogen, it only has a single proton, that's why it's 1 on the table. In this universe, you would have the normal everyday "H" but also a "H magu 1" where its proton is affected by magu.

Iron as a total of between 52 and 60 proton/neutron this means that there would be 60 different variation of it caused by the magu permeating the world. There is no difference between Fe-56 and Fe-58 in terms of magu corruption aside from the fact that you can't have some Fe-56 with a lvl 57 corruption. Got it? This means that there is a blood-iron-52 and also a blood-iron-60 that would have the same sort of difference ordinary iron-52 and iron-60 would experience.

Both of them would have the same exact amount of proton/neutron corrupted. This also means that for each element, if you can corrupt it manually and exactly, every time you corrupt for example 24 parts of it, it will always result in the very same exhibited new properties. This is why you can find entire veins of the stuff and its not all a huge chaotic jumble.

The lower you go on the periodic table, the wider variation of them you get but medieval mankind doesn't care and just threat everything as different materials altogether instead of variation of the same.

Melting the different irons together does result in mixing their properties because the atomic corruption doesn't change, it just mix parts of the three different corruption in bulks if you will. Mixing them together will never result in an entirely new type of magu corrupted element unless you tweak them at an atomic level.

I used corruption as descriptor through this entire thing but it was not to make it sound evil, it was just the most appropriate term I could muster on the spot. It turns protons into M-protons and neutrons into M-neutrons like a cell eating other cells around it to make more of itself.

I don't know for other fantasy metals but no one can blame me of not putting thoughts into this XD.

Here is a list of a few of the iron variation Emp knows about: Blood-iron, Buzzing-iron, Chaos-iron, Divine-Iron, Echoing-Iron, Ethereal-iron, Fairy-iron, Normanic-Iron, Turtle-Iron...

Their M number isn't included because I can't be bothered to decide them, it's a pointless thing to do since it will never be of any use to the story. Divine-iron is most likely the highest number naturally occurring.

(2) Obviously, reducing the weight of someones bones can't do all that, the elixir is much more miraculous than what Heinrich said. I promise, it is well worth the ten thousand gold coins.