[Ironworks] Dagger by design

[Eanos]

Spring 44, 510

The light of the new morning sunlight penetrated into the depths of the forge though weakly as though the purity of the light did not want to be contaminated by the accumulated grime which dirty smoke had left clinging to the walls and ceiling. Despite the grime the light revealed that the forge was orderly with all tools carefully stowed in their respective place and all the tools themselves gleamed softly in the dim light.

Metal chimed softly, the echoes being absorbed by the solid walls and partitions which dulled the noise of the many smiths who worked at the Ironworks, as Eanos stood before the anvil which was to be his workplace for the day. Few of his fellow smiths had yet arrived for the days work, which was as the Isur preferred it since it allowed him to focus without distraction on his faith for the god Izurdin, which was perhaps the most important part of his life, displacing even his love of metal shaping and magic.

"I thank the Lord Izurdin for this day where I have the chance to improve my skills and I dedicate my work to you. I thank you for the metal which has come the ground which also supports me. I thank you for the fire which purifies the metal and allows me to work it. I thank you also for the air which cools and yet which also makes the fire hotter. I thank you for the liquids which quench and I thank you especially for granting Us Your blessing by choosing us above the other races."

Raising his left hand he clenched his fist and smote it down upon the face of the anvil so that the anvil rang from the blow; the purity of the note closing his prayer and showing that at least to his mind that Izurdin had accepted the prayer and would watch over his shoulder and guide him when needed to exceed all expectations through the power of concentration and effort.

[Eanos]

With his prayers in place, the foundation for the day in place, he now felt ready to start the work for the day which in this case would revolve around a dagger which had been commissioned by a red headed human woman. Not that he would spend all day on it, for there would be times when the metal was heating or cooling and other tasks would occupy him, but even so, this was his first commission since arriving at the forge, the first time he would be held personally responsible for work by a customer, the first time it would be his reputation which would walk out the door to his betterment or detriment and not just that of the reputation of Ros and the Ironworks.

His forge differed from the others around him because of the lack of certain tools such as tongs for working with the heat of the fire and now he slipped a blank of knife grade steel into the coals of the forge which he had unbanked on his arrival that morning, though that arrival had only necessitated walking from his bed out the back which also in part explained his early start to the day.

With the metal heating it was time to turn his attention to preparing for the other tasks of the day and indeed of the days to come. On the workbench to the side of the anvil he had already put some sheets of parchment, their surface already slightly rough from being used before and some sticks of charcoal. Taking a sheet of parchment he spent a moment rehearsing in his mind the glyph that he wanted then closed his eyes and focussed on the the djed. His eyes flickered open and he drew swiftly but confidently a double curve, the two sides interlocking and spiralling around each other. One curve finished in the centre, the other at the edge and he added a small cap line to that one so that it closed the loop and sealed the circle.

With the focus glyph completed he started on the outer barrier which was a series of f shaped runes, the upper edges of which meshed to form a circle while the lower curves pushed down towards the focus glyph like soft spines. His lips quirked in irritation as he worked his way around for the circle was far more irregular than he'd have liked. Added to which the metal was heating quicker than he was completing the task. Soon he was forced to concede that he wasn't going to win this particular race and so he stopped, sliding the parchment to one side in disgust and headed towards the forge for a more familiar and at this point more enjoyable task.

[Eanos]

The steel had gone well beyond red, in fact it had almost gone beyond yellow while he'd been concentrating on the the parchment once his fingers had dug into the coals and retrieved the flat bar of steel.

Now was the time for careful work for the steel had become pliable and his reading of the aura showed that it had relaxed into a single form, at least as far into it as he was able to see. Forged for this reason was always stronger than shaped which was why he chose this method to make the dagger, a type of blade which was designed for one purpose only and a result had other weaknesses at least in theory.

His hammer came down on the hot metal, working only on the end furthest from where the fingers of his left hand held the now only yellow hot metal. He hammered it into a crude point and then started to work his way up the blade slowly, taking the time to reheat as he went and always with an eye on the aura to see if it showed any potential for flaws or uneven cooling as the hammer wrought it into its new shape.

The dagger was a delicate blade and one which required a very careful shaping and balance. Though it was true that the final appearance spoke mostly of the finishing work, still if the blade was uneven in any way then no amount of dressing could correct it. His hammer blows were firm for at this stage he was still interested only in changing a thin and flat bar into something more narrow, pointed and with a thicker cross section.

Heating the work again he worked again on what would be the point and then worked back up to create a smooth taper on all sides, turning and checking, looking at the piece from all angles. Only when he was happy with that did he start to flatten it out again and all the time he worked it, so the piece elongated. That stretching was not by itself even though and so he started to introduce the bevel. It was a careful operation for no longer could he hit the metal as hard or as wantonly as he had been up until this point for now a single misjudged strike could mar the final finish beyond all hope of recovery.

[Eanos]

With the bevels no more than roughed out Eanos heated the metal up again and put it aside to cool so that it would reset into it's new shape. It wasn't something which was entirely necessary but neither would it cause any harm and he wanted to spend some time being able to think clearly without need to have part of his mind tracking what was happening in the forge.

Back at the workbench he drew a fresh sheet of parchment to him and this time because he worked without distractions so his mind was more focussed and he worked more swiftly. The double spiral of the focus came into being in the centre of the parchment and the around it the interlinked f marks with their tails forming a spiked barrier around the focus. The charcoal left thick black lines on the pale surface of the parchment along with a number of smudges where the heel of his hand had dragged across what he had already drafted. A trickle of djed ran into the lines as he drew them and gave them life beyond mere marks though with the smudges both from the charcoal and his dirty hands it was not the sort of draftsmanship which he'd been taught as a student. His final act was to set the trigger, which in this case would be a single word, that of "enlighten" which while being a normal enough word was not one he'd use in the normal course of his forging when all his fellows could extract from him were a series of grunts.

Now he increased his level of focus and concentrated on his ability to read the aura of steel. Releasing the energy slowly he fed it into the focus point and felt it be absorbed. As he did so he felt the first tugs of tiredness and drew the release to a close. So far he'd not experienced overgiving with his auric readings but there would be a first time he knew, which in part was why he'd tried this, so that later in the day he would still be able to see the aura of the blade even though he might have exhausted his personal djed.

[Eanos]

The steel had been slipped back into the coals to reheat while the smith took the chance to take a rest. Whilst he'd not done anything like enough physical work to account for the weariness which he felt, it seemed that the mental challenges were far more taxing than the physical ones for which his body was so well adapted and trained. Many hours with a heavy hammer in his hand had given him a musculature which would be impressive to some, yet his studies had never been so intensive and as a result he had far less endurance for that sort of thing.

He edged himself up against the anvil and allowed it to take some of his weight while he closed his eyes and relaxed. The forge fire warmed him and he raised a hand to wipe away a trickle of sweat which cut through the fine layer of grime which coated his skin. Responsibility lay somewhat heavily on his shoulders for he worked to a time scale which he himself had dictated and he had the expections of Eris to exceed. He had not missed the way she had inspected his own blade and she could not have missed the faults in its finish. The steel of this blade was simpler yet that would not matter once it was blessed but on this one he knew he had to get it right and as he rested he whispered another prayer that Izurdin would guide his hand and teach him well enough that the work would be worthy of his race; the chosen of their god.

The metal hissed slightly as he drew it back out of the coals, the touch giving him a feel for the aura of the piece though he gave it only the lightest of probes as he wanted to save what djed he had left for later. Laying it down on the anvil he changed ends so that he held it by the roughly shaped blade and then he started to work the tang into a cylinder so that it would maximise the weight. Bringing the tang back up to heat he allowed for some extra metal for the pommel so that he could fine tune the balance and struck off the remainder of the original bar. Returning the chisel to its place on the rack he regarded the dagger which lay glowing red on the anvil, for the first time looking something like it would in its final form and he smiled with some satisfaction.

[Eanos]

The time had come for him to take considerably more care with the working of the blade for now it lay before him in but the roughest shape and so he consigned it once more the the flames leaving just the tang sticking out since there was no need to heat more than was necessary.

The anvil rang as his hammer struck swiftly and firmly on the edge of the tip of the blade. Unlike his blade which he'd made not so long before, this one being a dagger had a dual bevel and so needed a different technique because symmetry was a key part of the blade and yet another factor which he needed to keep in mind as he worked. It was an interesting challenge and one which made him smile as his hammer struck first on one side and then flipping the blade over so that as the metal shifted and flowed under his strokes, the resulting tendency for the blade to bend away from the strokes was corrected.

As he worked back from the tip, first on one side of the blade and then on the other he hummed to himself, each strike in time with the tune which ran through his mind. Slowly he worked his way up the bevels, the blade extending as he did so, but he also pushed metal up towards what would be the hilt for this blade also thickened in width as it went.

"Power to my Lord," he broke into verse as he went though it would likely make a bard wince, "fire bright, you lighten our lives and give us the gift to make metals workable. Your skill Lord, metal on metal, the tune of my life, matching the beating of my heart." Mercifully for his colleagues had they heard him, he resumed humming as slowly the blade was refined though he left plenty of thickness on the edge so that it did not warp in the forging that was still to come.

[Eanos]

When the blade was prepared and he'd checked and modified the balance as well as he could with the blade still in it a relatively unfinished state it was time to convert the blade from mere steel into a temper which would hold an edge and at the same time have enough flexibility that the blade was not fragile should it ever be tested in the heat of battle. Whilst he had a fair idea of how it was intended to be used by the new owner, a blade such as this might trade hands many times and it was likely to be abused during its lifetime.

With that in mind he clayed the spine of the blade on both sides and then set it to heat in the forge leaving the handle outside of the heat so that the pommel would remain workable for this was his main opportunity to ensure that the balance was correct once the blade itself was finished.

Heated, cooled and tempered properly it was time to set to work on the long process of sharpening and bringing the blade into its final shape. Before that though he wanted a more detailed examination of the blades aura to ensure that no unexpected flaws had crept in during the work so far. It was time to use the glyph he'd prepared earlier, a reserve against the fatigue which nibbled at his mind.

The metal was cool enough now that it did not set light to the paper which he laid across it, though he reflected that it might well be a useful trigger for the future, an experiment he stored away in his mind for another day. He double checked that the paper was the right way round then set himself into the right frame of mind before softly speaking the trigger phrase. Squatting down he immersed himself into the aura of the blade, examining as well as he could from the aura to see how the blade was now structured in terms of the flow of the metal and its hardness. Time trickled past as the studied the metal, determined to learn a little more about how its aura reflected what his eyes could see from the shape and colour and from what his fingers could feel.

[Eanos]

Time passed slowly and yet for the smith the daylight which flooded into the forge seemed to flicker past quickly, the shadows moving across as though they were alive and determined to crawl quickly across and complete the cycle which happened every day.

This commission was one which he was determined to finish well and he was mindful of the old smiths adage that a hearbeat at the forge saved six at the vice. Carefully he finished the shaping of blade and tang and then moved the work over to the vice where he would spend much more time than he had in the forging. Now the work looked something like the finished dagger in shape, but it was rough from the hammer and black with scale from the forge.

The file rasped across its width, running with an angle and hitting it coarsely to break off the scale. Slowly the bright steel emerged and as it did he regularly broke off to take the blade out and hold it to the light, checking the reflection of the steel to ensure he was working flat. But also too even he needed a break for all that he was Isur. This was the hardest work and a heavy session with the file would leave even the toughest smiths short of breath.

With the shape now finalised and the bevels set it was time to turn first to drawfile and then to work his way along the abrasives to finish the blade, bringing the surface down to a smooth mirrored surface.

But steel was just steel at the end of the day, no matter how well crafted and yet Isurian steel was sought after because it was more than just steel. He stroked the blade with his left hand, stropping the steel with his tough fingers.

"Let your power flow through me Lord," he spoke quietly, address his god. His arm was proof of the blessing conferred on him as on all of his race and now he concentrated all of his energies on the preparation of what was to follow.

It was to be a long process, one which tested the skill of his heart rather than the skill of his hands but by the end of it, the test had been passed and now the blade was more than it had been.



Then it was simply a question of handing it over to be handled and it was done.

[Dusk]

XP Award! Eanos XP Award: Weaponsmithing: 3 XP, Gylphing: 2 XP, Auristics: 2 XP, Singing: 1 XP Lore Award: Praying, Beginnings of Overgiving Ledger: None Additional Note Another great training thread! I love the religious aspect you bring to it.