Completed To Impress the Dead I: Preparations of the Mundane

[Aedifalse]

515-SPRING-75
Communal Workshop 18A, Gug Andjak

Aedi had spent the entirety of his first day upon arrival in the undead citadel to inquire about the bureaucratic rules of the place, and now found himself in the depths of the Gug Andjak, poring over the spectrum of raw materials available. After confirming the rules of the Judgement, it would seem that he had several days left to prove his worth if he did not want to wait for another half-season, and that was motivation enough for him to quickly find one of the empty communal workshops to create an item worthy of presentation.

While candidates were meant to display their magical potential, similar in a way to initiates for the Silver Tower back in Sultros, he intended to elevate himself above the usual competition by adding a mundane touch. It is obvious that the field he wanted to progress in was the ancient art of enchanting, but he would do so with an object created with his own two hands, and not some other third rate product made by inferior craftsmen.

In that regard, the workshop as perfect for him, as it contained the necessary facilities for both mundane and magical creation, and he was honestly quite impressed with the complexity and scale of the whole setup in Sahova. Even the forge were powered by some sort of mysterious power that kept it burning bright, and he did not have to labor for hours to set up the minimal wood fire needed to forge items.

He took several moments to put himself in a focused state of mind, then took a steel ingot, inserting it into the furnace as a start. There was not enough time to finish forging a full-blown blade, and he had every intention of producing an extremely polished product, so that meant that he had to scale down his ambitions.

Before he left Zeltiva he had taken the pains to inspect and estimate the blueprints of one of the simple and small weapons from his workplace at the Armed Scholar, and it is this image that he now struggled to recall as he brought it up to his conscious memory.

The punch dagger, a tiny weapon that was able to be held conveniently in an fist that provided an additional shanking bonus to its attacks. It was intricate enough yet small to be able to forged within the limited time available.

The steel heated up in the forge and the weaponsmith brought it out, placing the crimson material upon the familiar bare anvil. Visualizing it shape, he began the process of drawing out the steel with his forge-hammer, and soon the rhythmic clashes of imposing his will upon malleable steel filled the unnatural silence that constantly pervaded the air of Sahova.

In a way, the sound was comforting for it negated the uncomfortably somber atmosphere, and Aedi took great joy in giving each striking blow an additional force in strength, using the noise created by his fervent crafting as his means of asserting his own bubble of dominance within this strange, foreign land.

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As the weapon that he intended to make was a rather tiny one, it would be more efficient to forge its entire shape in one sitting, rather than the usual method of abstracting components and attaching them later on for the larger weapons. With that in mind, he began to draw out the steel outwards in rough, square pancake shape rather than pushing it out to form the length of a blade.

From there, he marked the middle of the metal sheet to signify the separation between the hilt and the blade. The punch dagger was also known as a T-handled knife, due to its eponymous hilt attached to the stabbing dagger. With that in mind, the place where the guard would normally be was an inverse to normal swords, and in this case it was actually inverted inwards rather than outwards as guards usually would.

In order to do that, he had to essentially shrink and curve the sides by placing sheet of metal on its side so that it would stand up on its thinner edge. Using a much smaller hammer than one usually used to draw out metal, he hammered the sides of the molten sheet. The calculated pressure pushed only the stressed area inwards, keeping the rest of the sheet at their original position. Flipping the sheet over, he did the same at the equal side of the sheet, essentially creating an exaggerated hourglass shape from the steel.

Focusing on the hilt, he began to upset the bottom of the sheet of metal at the part that he marked as the hilt. Holding it securely against the anvil, he began striking at the bottom of the metal to shift the steel upwards, essentially reducing its length and forcing the steel to fold over and increase its cross-section. What he was doing was to shorten the sheet of steel here and to thicken it so that it would resemble the upper part of the "T" alphabet, with the "triple-junction" being the exaggerated hourglass inversions that he made earlier.

Moving his focus to the blade, he first began shrinking the marked area so that it would resemble more of a rod first. This is done by repeatedly hammering the protruding sides while taking turns to keep the other two dimensions constant in order to develop an evenly matched shrink. Doing so numerous times then caused the original sheet of steel that resembled paper to now resemble the literal shape of "T", with the upper part being the handle and the bottom part being the blade.

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For him to create the leaf-shaped blade from the rod, he would have to again draw out the steel. While it seemed that these methods were repetitive and redundant, it was actually necessary to constantly fold and redraw the metal so that the many impurities within the allow would be distributed evenly. This would result in a stronger result when left to settle down and cool, and the durability of it make would be more consistent throughout the product.

Switching hammers again, the Isur whistled cheerfully as he continued to hammer down on the rod-shaped blade, constantly rotating it as he struck it with a medium-sized hammer. There was no need for the sledgehammer due to the small scale of this project. It also also fortunate, because he had to complete this solo without any assistance. However, he placed more focus on trying to spread out the width instead of lengthening the blade, and to this end he positioned the end of the "T"-metal securely against an obstacle to prevent the length from increasing.

Applying pressure on one dimension while constraining the other only resulted in the expansion of the remaining dimension, and this was what occurred as the thin rod began expanding sidewards. Aedi took great care in aiming at the direct center that formed the spine of the blade so that the equal stress on the steel would cause its width to develop equally.

When the steel began to take its shape through tireless forging, the weaponsmith once again began to conduct shrinking operations on the material, but this time at increasingly reduced intervals as he moved upwards. With that, the strength on the shrinking process decreased as he started from the base and went up to the tip until the blade had a nice leaf shape.

Within the steel handle, he combined the force of a chisel and the strength of his arm to punch out two holes at equally distanced sides. This would later serve to help secure the grip layer when placed upon the finished weapon.

The Isur critically inspected the frame of the dagger, and continued to alternate between drawing and shrinking as he slowly folded the raw material into a respectable form. He also focused more of his attention on the inverted guard, as the fit was very important for this sort of intimate melee weapon.

When he was finally satisfied, he dunked it briefly into the cooling vat, and while the weapon began settling into its shape he casually grabbed a block of lumber from the raw materials tray. Using the benefit of his blessed arm, he peeled and shaped the single block of lumber into an unnatural shape that could not usually be done with tools.

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Splitting the lumber into two, he took the first portion and begun molding it into a wrapper for a T-shape handle like putty. It was a slow process as he was only allowed to use his left arm, and he wondered how efficient and convenient it would be if both his arms had this same ability.

Still, it was probably Izurdin's way of telling his people that they needed to work hard, and with his other arm he mostly used it to perform activities on the lumber that were more practical and which did not require the magical curving properties his left arm could induce the wood to do.

Aedi worked in silence, cupping his left palm to fold the wood into the curved shape, while using a carver's knife on the right to smooth the surface as well as to cut out offending protrusions that resulted due to the inexperienced handling from the left. When he was sure that it would be able to fit the handle, he used the first part as reference to mold and carve a mirrored sibling for the wooden cover, making sure to constantly compare against the first layer to ensure consistency.

When that was done, he checked the cooling vat again as he passed by to the furnace. The musty smell of water vapors from the hissing basin proved to be therapeutic to the Isur, and he hummed to himself as he searched for ingots of iron. Heating them in the furnace, he brought them to the anvil with a more comfortable air, for these materials could be manipulated by his arm.

Using his blessed palm, he rolled two ingots of iron like dough on the anvil, sliding them up and down until they became thin rods. Holding them upright with his fist, he hammered down upon them with his right, shrinking them into fatter cylinders, then rolled them with his palm again. Repeating the process a few times guaranteed a better distributed internal structure, which was important for these would be the nails holding the hilt together.

Affixing the cooling steel frame upon a specialized wooden holder, he clasped both wooden layers that he made over the T-shaped handle, and noted that there was a slight misfit. No matter, for he simply exploited the divine advantage of his left arm to gently coax the wooden handles into shape to fit the steel handle perfectly. Using one hand to clasp both sides of the wrapper, he used tongs to insert the white-hot nail into the holes, using his left thumb to poke holes into the wooden layers where it coincided with the holes within the steel underneath.

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Unfortunately, the impromptu nails were a little too small for the clearing that they were given. In order to correct that, Aedi simply held one end with his magical arm, then hammered the nail on the other end towards his left palm. Doing so caused it to shrink, and since its dimensions were being restricted, the only places the iron could go were sidewards, thus filling up the hole.

When it fit securely, he took it out and lay it on the anvil, repeating the same procedure for the other nail. He placed them both into the cooling vat, and after a period of time brought them to the furnace again. It was a seeming contradiction that would befuddle those unfamiliar with blacksmithing.

The reason he did so was to unevenly introduce temperature to the areas that he wanted to manipulate while keeping the unaffected areas cool. Carefully inserting only a bit of the iron nails into the furnace, he waited until the tip began white-hot, then reversed them to do the same for the other tip.

When they were ready, he inserted the nails once again into the snug holes, then hammered both ends of the malleable nails. Doing so flattened the heated parts and by doing so it would secure the wooden layers and kept them attached. However, it was not enough, and he continued flattening the mushroom-caps of the nails until they were also indented into the wooden layers. With the additional use of his left arm, he smoothed over the conjoined materials where iron and wood meet, and facilitated a comfortable, integrated combination that would not be jarring to the skin when held.

When that was done, he cooled the weapon, and when it was ready held it in his grip. It fit rather comfortably, and the handle did not cause any small cuts due to material imperfections or inaccurate matching. The introduction of the different materials fit appropriately as well.

With a grin, Aedi located the whestone and began the mind-numbing process of grinding the blade. The refining of the blade's edge in such a weapon like the punch dagger was more akin to the creation of an arrowhead rather than that of a dagger or sword due to it shape. Therefore, rather than sharpening the sides, it was more important for the sides to slant sharply into a keen tip that would draw blood easily.

The day passed by quickly as the Isur cycled the wheel, the constant noise that he subjected the workroom to as an accompanying music to his crafting work. The clashing noise of steel against stone might be described similar to that of scratching blackboards, but to Aedi it was a nostalgic and familiar companion.

As night fell and the workshops that were used by living occupants began to close, the last of the metal filings landed in a discarded pile, and the Isur inspected his finished product hopefully, swinging it about and congratulating himself with every vicious swish.

For a one-day forging done alone in a unsettling environment like Sahova, it was quite satisfactory indeed.

Punch Dagger :

Next episode here.