Path of Dragons

Searing heat buffeted Carmen as she stepped into her newly expanded forge. Inside, there were seven apprentices working, and that wasn’t even considering the number of people who’d been tasked with smelting the freshly mined cold iron ore. After exterminating the last of the critters, Silverado’s miners had found thick veins of the stuff, and ever since then, they’d been steadily pulling it from the earth.

And it was just as potent a resource as Carmen had expected.

She crossed the forge, making her way to a pile of ingots waiting to be worked. She retrieved one, then used Tradesman’s Appraisal, resulting in a notification flashing before her inner eye:

Cold Iron Ingot Overall Grade: Simple (Medium)

It was already better than the metal she’d used to create Destroyer, and that had been the product of weeks’ worth of work and quite a lot of scavenging. It was no wonder Roman had been so adamant that the mine be tapped. Carmen spent the next few minutes searching for the perfect ingots. Most were on the low end of Simple-Grade, but there were a couple that were in the middle, like the one she’d inspected. Those were her targets, and after a few more minutes, she found ten such ingots.

Then, she carried them to her personal forge, which was separate from her apprentices. Normally, she didn’t mind working among them, but sometimes, she needed full concentration. As such, she’d had the separate area built to her exacting specifications, which included her own smelter as well as a forge that could handle the intense heat of a fire fueled by ethera-soaked coal.

She was certain that there were better fuels out there, but she’d yet to find any. Perhaps when she did, she’d be able to take the next step in her progression as a Blacksmith.

But that was a worry for another day. For now, she was only concerned with completing the project before her. So, she took the first two ingots and used Meld Metals to merge them into one. Once she had, she used Refine Material. The results were mixed because the designated smelting crew all had the same technique available to them. As such, the ingots had already been subjected to multiple instances of that, as well as Decontaminate. Still, her technique was a little more powerful than theirs, so she still managed to eke a little use out of it.

In truth, it probably wasn’t worth the ethera, but Carmen had ever been a perfectionist, and so, she intended to take every step possible to ensure the product was the peak of what she could achieve.

Especially given its purpose.

So, once she’d prepared those two merged ingots, she thrust them into the flames and started working on the rest of her materials. And by the time she’d finished, the metal was hot enough for her to work. So, using Summon Tool, she manifested a pair of tongs and dragged the molten metal ingots out of the fire. Once she’d slapped it onto an anvil, she conjured a hammer and started pounding the metal into submission.

She only got a dozen good blows in before she had to shove it back into the forge. That was one of the problems with Cold Iron. As its name suggested, it was resistant to fire, and it dissipated heat remarkably quickly. Because of that, a smith who wanted to work with the metal needed to be incredibly cognizant of hammering cold metal, which would result in stress fractures that would, in turn, lower the grade of the item.

Carmen had no intention of letting that happen.

So, over the next few hours, she diligently worked, spending more time letting the forge heat the metal than she actually spent hammering. However, for a crafter, patience was a virtue. It was even more important to maintain focus when the natural inclination was to let her mind wander. Staying on task was an especially difficult thing, what with everything going on.

After meeting with the rebel leaders, Carmen had agreed to provide high-quality armor and weapons to them and their allies. She wasn’t sure about working with the roaming warband led by Laramie, but she had been assured that they were better than Roman. She hadn’t needed much convincing, given the personal enmity she held for the man. If Carmen was honest with herself – which was a rare thing – she would have admitted that she didn’t truly care about the fate of Easton. Instead, the only thing that concerned her was taking revenge on Roman. And as a Blacksmith, the best way she could do that was by providing powerful equipment to the fighters who could give her the opportunity to take her vengeance.

Those thoughts flitted along the surface of Carmen’s mind as she worked. If she could have stopped them from doing so, she would have, but that was almost impossible. As a result, her product probably suffered, at least a little. Still, the slow pace of the work did give her the opportunity to use one of her latest techniques:

Ethereal Fortification

Infuse a single blow with ethera, injecting an in-progress item with additional power. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

It did precisely what the description said it would, and each time she struck the metal with it active, it sent a jolt of ethera into the material. However, it came with two issues. First, it was slow to activate, which meant that she had to work with a steady and deliberate pace. As such, using it with Cold Iron, whose rapid cooling meant that she had a very short amount of time to work with, slowed the work down considerably. The second issue was that it used an incredible amount of ethera, which served to highlight some of the issues with her attribute allocation. She was heavy on Strength and Constitution, but light on Ethera and Regeneration. The less said about her low Dexterity, the better.

Still, each level she attained served as a course correction due to the automatic allocation that came with her class. So, if she wanted to be better, she knew the course. In the meantime, though, she struggled to maintain enough ethera to consistently use her abilities, which slowed her down even more.

Even so, Carmen was nothing if not patient, and she persisted through her own limitations. After nearly seven hours, she finally held up the product she had created. It was a breastplate, sized to fit Colt. The man was her second-in-command, and yet, he wore no armor aside from that ridiculous coat of his.

And it wasn’t even Crude-Grade.

No, if he was going to be effective, he needed better armor. Carmen aimed to satisfy that need. So, after setting the unfinished breastplate aside, she grabbed another ingot and continued the process. Over the next two days, during which she fielded a few questions from her apprentices who’d been tasked with forging the equipment for the rebels, but she also managed to hammer an entire set of armor into shape. A breastplate, two bracers, and a pair of greaves. It wasn’t ideal, and if she’d had her way, she would have outfitted him in a full set of armor that covered his entire body. However, Colt had made it abundantly clear that he wanted no such thing. So, this was a compromise.

The metal itself was deep blue, with hints of pearlescent white. Hopefully, he would like that color.

In any case, now that the base structure was done, Carmen needed to start with the embellishments. So, she used another new technique:

Ethereal Etching

Use ethera to carve embellishments into metal. No tools required.

With that ability, she didn’t need any tools to create ethera-infused embellishments on the armor. However, that was not the extent of what she had planned. Instead, she intended to adjust things a little more fully, using Shape.

Shape

Reshape a material with raw ethera.

With that, she could make minor adjustments to the armor that would have otherwise required quite a bit more hammering or a grinder. However, using the two in conjunction was extremely ethera thirsty, which meant that she was in for a long haul. Still, she persisted, using her two techniques as often as she was able. And gradually, the armor took its final shape.

She wasn’t going for anything truly eye-catching. Just a mostly plain breastplate, with etched greaves and bracers. Still, there was beauty in subtle simplicity, and what’s more, Carmen knew that Colt’s taste trended toward the unassuming.

Eventually, she finished, though she didn’t dare use Tradesman’s Appraisal yet. Just because the armor was forged, it didn’t mean the project was complete. So, she gathered the individual pieces and headed away from the forge. When she left the building, she couldn’t help but blink as the sunlight of a new day assailed her eyes. Yet, she didn’t wait around to let her sight adjust, instead heading to the neighboring building that housed Silverado’s overworked Leatherworkers.

There, she found the man she was looking for.

“You finish it?” she asked.

“I did,” the Leatherworker said. He wasn’t particularly skilled, and he hadn’t even reached level twenty yet. However, he was the best Silverado had to offer, so Carmen reasoned that beggars couldn’t be choosers.

After he retrieved the piece in question, she inspected it. When she was satisfied, she told him what she wanted. It was just one piece of the puzzle, so she wasn’t terribly concerned with the quality of his work. Yet, she knew the end product would be better if she let a real Leatherworker do it rather than try to make it work on her own. So, after explaining everything, she left the armor with him.

With that done, she had a few hours to kill. So, she strode toward the training yard where she expected to find Miguel. Sure enough, he was there, practicing the sword with Colt. The two had a good relationship, which Carmen appreciated. A young boy needed all the positive role models he could get, and Colt satisfied that requirement quite well.

For a long time, she leaned against the fence that encircled the training ground, just watching her son go through his training. Some of it, she understood, but her approach to battle had always been more of a charge in and hit things really hard sort of method. So, the subtleties of swordfighting had never appealed to her.

But watching Miguel, she could certainly see the draw.

When he saw her, he gave her a subdued wave, but he knew better than to interrupt his lessons. So, that was all Carmen was going to get for now.

After a couple of hours, she returned to the Leatherworker and inspected his work. It was adequate, so she handed him a handful of copper ethereum for his trouble. He tried to protest being paid, saying that he didn’t mind, but Carmen knew just how much a few extra copper could help. So, she didn’t mind.

In any case, she quickly returned to the forge with the item, then, after taking a few minutes to center herself, used Bond to make the Leatherworker’s work permanent. After that, she started the enchantment process.

She still couldn’t do anything more than a Minor Enchantment, but she had learned a few extra methods over the past few months. As such, she could imbue the item with a few extra attribute points. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of adding an ability, and she suspected that would be the case until she managed to upgrade her Minor Enchantment technique. But that was fine. It would still be better than what anyone else in Easton wore.

The process took many more hours – so many, in fact, that Carmen grew dizzy from lack of food, which interrupted her efforts for a few hours – but in the end, she accomplished precisely what she’d set out to do and created an item set in the middle of the Simple-Grade.

Congratulations! You have created a unique item set: [Warden’s Armor]. Overall Grade: Simple (Middle) Enchantment Grade: F

The bracers had been seamlessly integrated into a new leather duster, which had been made from the hides of the highest level terrestrial molaks. The Leatherworker had enchanted it for durability, though he was incapable of doing any more than that. Carmen hadn’t expected the breastplate or greaves to be included in the set, but she was more than happy with the results.

Hopefully, it would be enough to protect the strongest fighter she had. Because she had a feeling that hard times were coming.

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