Solo The Zeltivan Blueprints I: Formalizing the Swordsmith

[Aedifalse]

515-SPRING-07

"What do you mean you don't know anything?" A voice bellowed incredulously.

There was a knock on the door, and a timid voice asked, "Professor Morrison asked that you lower the volume of your consultation. He said that he can't hear himself speaking."

"Well ask that old snake if he ever had a student who doesn't know anything, eh?" Garath Markwell, blacksmith extraordinaire and passionate teacher, asked pointedly as he gestured towards the subject of his incredulity.

Aedifex Aghanim squirmed in his seat and he tried to defend himself from this accusation, "Well, it's not like-"

The intruding student gulped and repeated, "In any case, Professor Morrison asked that you keep the volume down. That is all," And with that she quickly escaped the blacksmith's office.

Markwell mumbled to himself about students not knowing their place before returning his attention to his newest recruit.

"Well?" He demanded.

"I do know how to make swords. I made one for you that other day!" Aedi objected defensively.

"You can't even give me the range of the cross-section of a bastard sword's guard! And you call yourself a swordsmith?" Markwell's voice began to rise to dangerous levels again.

"I just... I learned by watching! Then I make it to how I thought they would look like!" Aedi pointed out as he flushed. It was no longer a battle to defend his honor, it was to defend the honor of the Isurs!

Markwell took deep breaths and rubbed his temples as he glared at the Isur, then sighed as he steepled his fingers, resting his elbows on the desk of his spartan office.

"Look, that is definitely not the way we do things here. I get that you Isurs are naturally talented in these sort of things, but if you want to be anything good at this craft, you have to have a good foundation, which you don't have any!"

"Professor, I-"

"It just means you don't know anything, don't argue with me! I should have waited a little longer before writing that letter," Markwell groaned as he rested his face into his huge palms again.

Aedi let the silence stretch as he waited for his teacher to respond.

"This means, you're going on an accelerated program to learn the basics before you smear my name," Markwell decided, observing his student intensely. "You will learn a blueprint a day starting tomorrow."

That was quite an insane schedule for most people. But unlike most people, Aedi was an Isur, and Isurs were renowned for their diligence and hardcore dedication to their craft.

"But I don't think I'll be able to fully complete them in a day," He voiced out uncertainly, mentally ready to flinch if he were to trigger one of the blacksmith's passionate outbursts.

"No, just make an unfinished outline. No need to polish or sharpen. If it looks like the blueprint and shares its dimensional characteristics, it's done."

"You mean just like the unfinished short sword you asked me to work on previously?"

"Exactly like that."

He reached out to the shelves behind and grabbed several scrolls of parchment, presumably the blueprints that he was talking about.

"I expect to see your deliverables submitted and ready for inspection by the thirteenth," He intoned, while sliding the scrolls over his desk.

Aedi paused as he thought, then ventured, "But isn't it a waste of resources to make things halfway, Professor?"

"It's not a waste," Markwell replied, shuffling the papers on his desk carelessly.

With a tone of finality, he dismissed his student from his office.

"Where do you think that unfinished sword came from?"

[Aedifalse]

515-SPRING-08

The light outside was dim as the sun continued its descent from the sky. However, a certain workshop in the University was still alive, and the dying embers were rejuvenated once more by a diligent Isur. After completing his job requirements in the day, he had to return to campus to fulfill the accelerated assignment tasked to him.

The item of the day was that of the typical dagger. An ubiquitous item in many shops, the dagger is often sold not just to the cloak-and-shadows professions and crime, but also to upstanding citizens who wanted a convenient and light tool of self defense. Due to the simplicity of the weapon, the unfinished product that he was supposed to forge would actually be mostly finished, only lacking proper adornment for the guard, tacking on the hilt to the metal base, and sharpening of the blade.

All in all, it seemed to be an easy task. However, it was only the first task, so it was likely that things would only get harder down the road. Aedi shrugged and routinely inserted a bar of iron into the forge. He would be working entirely with iron weapons for it was the material of choice for educational purposes in the University due to its superior malleability and cost-effectiveness over steel, while teaching almost the same lesson.

When it began to glow molten red, he laid it out quickly on the anvil, roughly gauging its size and squinting at the rolled-out scroll on the Dagger that he had received prior. He noted the dimensions of 8" by 1" for the blade itself sans tip, and got to work combining the multitude of basic smithing techniques.

The majority of the work was repetitious and dull, yet one still had to maintain clear and focused in order to keep the strikes on point. By the repeated drawing out of the bar, combined with the frequent shrinking of depth and drawing of width, he was able to forcefully massage the bar of raw material into a sheet of iron that followed the specified dimensions.

Remembering the work he did for the Assassin's Dagger, the apprentice heated up a small cube of iron, abusing the privileges of his blessed arm to shape it into a primitive cone. Pushing the base of the cone against the raised side wall of the anvil, he gently applied pressure with his left palm evenly so that the three-dimensional cone would be flattened into more of a three-dimensional triangle.

While both pieces of iron were still hot, he once again used the magical properties of his arm to help weld the point and sheet together, and their ends now match more evenly due to the flattening efforts from earlier. Using the forge hammer, he struck the joining edges with a passion, evening out the distribution of iron so that the welding would be more uniform.

Remembering that he had another two components left to combine, for the sake of efficiency he placed two pieces of iron into the forge to ready them for the next steps. With the first one, he simply hammered it slightly to reduce its width, but otherwise keeping its rectangular bar shape. With a chisel, he outlined a smaller, rectangular-shaped hope in the middle that fit the cross-section of the blade, and with force and precision he struck it out. This would form the guard of the dagger.

With the other piece of iron he used his left palm to roll atop the anvil like it were cooking dough, and soon the nugget became a circular rod. Grabbing it in his blessed fist, he tapped the bottom of his rounded fist on the anvil, squaring the base of the rod and repeated the same for the top. Taking the malleable rod, he affixed it to the base of the blade, forming the base hilt.

Finally, he inserted half of the guard into the blade. This part fitted perfectly, but the other half enveloped air as the base hilt was a much smaller rod. In order to correct the missing spot, he took the piece of iron that he had punched out earlier and pushed it further into the forge for a longer period of time until it became even softer and resembled a watery substance. Cupping his left palm that held this substance, he poured the molten liquid into this gap and filled the guard, fully combining the blade, hilt and guard together.

Using his magical arm to smooth the surfaces of the dagger and to better weld every component together, he appraised his product for a brief moment before dousing it in the cooling water. The steam of completion hissed, and Aedi grinned as he glanced at the timekeeping candle near the entrance of the workshop.

He managed to complete this somewhat routine task in only a couple of bells. That meant he would have more sleep than he expected before work tomorrow.

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