Chapter 167: A little magic

Chapter 167: A little magic

Arwin returned to his forge and quickly set about getting everything ready to start working. He’d already spent a good portion of the day handling things other than crafting. Necessary they may have been, but they’d still taken a chunk out of the hours left before they went to the dungeon tomorrow.

He threw [Soul Flame] into his hearth and set the feather he’d gotten from Esmerelda down on top of his anvil. He turned to look at what metal he had to work with and, in the process, kicked up a faint wind that lifted the feather off the metal.

Arwin lunged and snagged it out of the air with two fingers just moments before it drifted off in the direction of the hearth. It hadn’t been anywhere near it, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. It would have been exasperating if the feather went up in flames after he’d had to go hunting around for it.

He set the feather back down on the anvil and rested a chunk of scrap metal on top of it to pin it in place. Arwin then went back to what he’d been doing in the first place. He had a fair amount of material to work with, but he was notably almost entirely out of Brightsteel.

There was still some left over from when he’d made the sets of armor, as well as three sets of non-magical armor sitting out in the front room of the smithy. Destroying them to make Anna’s armor felt rather wasteful, though.

It wasn’t like Brightsteel was the only material he could work with. In addition to the plates he’d taken from the spider and the centipede back in Olive’s dungeon, he also had Jessen’s spiky black suit of armor.

A small grin pulled across Arwin’s face. It would be an amusing note of irony to take the tyrant guild leader’s armor and reform it into a set for a healer. Jessen had been large, so he had more than enough to work with.

The more Arwin thought about it, the more the idea actually appealed to him. It would all boil down to if the feather could actually lighten the armor enough for Anna to use it and there was only one way to find out.

He moved the feather and the scrap holding it down over to the corner of the room before retrieving Jessen’s chestpiece and placing it on the anvil. It just seemed like normal metal, but that wasn’t saying much.

Arwin didn’t have any way to identify items when they were being worn by someone else, and he’d done some massive damage to Jessen before the man had died. The massive hole in the chest armor was proof enough of that, and it was severe enough that any magic the chestpiece may have once had would almost certainly have been destroyed by the time Jessen died.

Fortunately for me, metal remembers. Even if the magic isn’t there anymore, it’ll remember. I can’t be working with some evil metal that rejoiced in everything Jessen did. The set is for Anna, after all. Don’t need a bloodthirsty healer.

He set his hands on the rough surface of the warped black metal and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly to steady himself. Arwin opened his mind and reached out to the chestpiece.

Its response was slow. The metal was sluggish and weary, as if it had been woken from a long sleep. Distant scenes flickered through the back of Arwin’s mind. It had seen so many battles that they’d blended together into a blur.

There had been a point where the armor had once been excited for its purpose. It had been a suit of armor for so long that it didn’t even show Arwin any memories of what it had been before.

Jessen hadn’t been its first owner. That was certain. Arwin watched the chestpiece pass from hand to hand. It protected. It broke. It was rebuilt, and it served. Over and over again, it was worn through battles.

The distant scent of fresh earth reached Arwin’s nose, and it took him a second to realize that the smell wasn’t coming from around him. It was from the metal itself — or rather, the memory of magic that had once been within it.

Magical Olfactory works within visions and when speaking to materials? Now that’s good to know.

Arwin didn’t let himself get caught up in it. He rode out the wave of imagery, feeling the metal out. It didn’t seem like it had been either bad or good. It had simply been. It was weary, but it was willing to serve.

That would mean the armor would end up being heavier, but he had high hopes that the feather would solve that particular issue. If it didn’t, Anna wouldn’t be able to use the armor regardless of how mobile it was.

He took care to avoid getting too caught up in any one part and focused on getting everything made and roughly shaped. Calling on the Mesh to show him Anna’s sizing would result in a weakened final result, so he’d have to measure everything himself once it was formed.

It was dark out when Arwin finished the majority of his preparation. Half a dozen pieces sat on the ground before him, laid out and cooled in wait to be tested out. He hurried out of the smithy and over to the tavern in hopes of catching Anna before she went to bed.

Several heads turned to him as he stepped through the door — he’d caught the others right as they were eating dinner. Arwin grinned. “Ah, perfect. I was worried it would be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Rodrick asked, lowering the fork from his mouth. “Did something happen?”

“No. I just need to borrow Anna to measure her sizing for the armor for a moment,” Arwin replied. “Do you have a moment, Anna?”

“Sure,” Anna replied. She slipped down from her stool. “How long will it take?”

“Only a few minutes.” Arwin nodded to the others, then held the door open for Anna before following her out onto the street and back over to his smithy and into its back room.

“So what do I do?” Anna asked, looking at all the pieces laying on the floor. “Is there a way to fasten them on or something?”

“No, we don’t need to do that. Just hold still. I should probably get a measuring stick or something at some point, but this’ll do for now,” Arwin said idly, picking up the front plate of the chestpiece and holding it up to Anna’s chest. “Hold this here.”

Anna obliged, grunting slightly at the weight. While she held it up, Arwin gathered a mote of [Soul Flame] at his fingertip and increased its temperature. He used it to make markings along the outside of the armor, then took the plate of metal from Anna and handed her the next one.

In that manner, they went through the rest of the armor pieces. Arwin marked each one of them, and they’d gotten all the measurements he needed just around twenty minutes later. It wasn’t the most efficient way of doing things, but it worked.

“What’s next?” Anna asked.

“That’s it,” Arwin replied absent-mindedly, his mind already back on the chestpiece. “Thanks for your help.”

“I think I’m the one that should be thanking you,” Anna said with a laugh. “But I’ll do that when you’re fully present. See you tomorrow, Arwin.”

Arwin nodded, her words only barely reaching his head. The door closed behind him as Anna left, but he barely even heard it.

He scooped the single feather off the ground where it had been pinned beneath some scrap and placed it upon the anvil, a flicker of excitement coursing through him. He had everything he needed. The chestpiece was ready to move into its final step.

It was time to add in some magic.