[Ironworks] Hey I Know You... (Hadrian)

[Marcus Braeden]

Marcus never thought of it that way, but it could be considered true when one thought about it. But Marcus didn't dwell on it too much and carried on with the crafting.

"Too attach it and secure it we will peen it. There is a small hole at the end of the pommel which the tang should squeeze through. After that we just have to hammer it down as a rivet. Then we just need to file it and polish it to make it match the pommel" Marcus explained.

Marcus took the lead and showed Hadrian the ropes. Marcus first made absolutely sure that the tang protruded through the hole and that it had a good fit inside the hilt. Once Marcus determined it to be secure, Marcus begin to pound the metal coming out of the hilt with his hammer, bending it into a rivet that would make sure that the hilt stayed completely attached to the blame. All that was needed after that was a bit of touch up. Marcus polished it and lightly hammered it to fit the shape of the pommel. Marcus also polished the rest of the hilt as well as the blade to give it a shimmer that looked brand new.

"Yeah, perhaps it was a bad call to use pre-made hilts. Next time we will make our own" Marcus said.

[Hadrian]

"Ah, I see," he said, and he did, both from the explanation and after watching Marcus do it before attempting it himself. He was able to find a hilt that seemed to fit the tang of his naked dagger, and once he had slipped it on, he braced the thing in a vice and carefully hammered at the tip protruding from the bottom of the hilt. Once the tip was mostly flattened into a rivet, he polished it much as he had seen Marcus do, and lightly hammered the rest of it into an almost seamless piece with the rest of the hilt. When he removed it from the vice and polished it up, it looked like a sturdy, if not special, dagger. "Huh. I did it." He glanced at Marcus when he second guessed the hilts. With a grin, Hadrian shrugged, too glad at his success to be overly worried by details. "That means you're agreeing to giving me another lesson, you know."

[Marcus Braeden]

"Yeah I know. I guess since the daggers are complete we can go ahead and make a couple of hilts" Marcus said. Marcus also wanted Hadrian to stick around a bit longer. He enjoyed the company and liked being able to talk about random things as he worked. But also, he was beginning to think of telling Hadrian of what had taken place over the course of the winter of 510 AV. He felt like he needed to get it off his chest as no one really knew of what had happened, apart from himself and a now deceased man who had been kind enough to give Marcus a ride back toward Syliras. Hell the man pretty much died getting Marcus back to the town. Sure, Marcus had told his tale in the tavern for some odd reason, but he had been taken as a drunk, and therefore he was surely not believed. But not an ounce of alcohol was in him, so that assumption could be thrown out the window. But since Hadrian apparently knew people, high ranking people, maybe he could somehow help him and his plans. Who knew, but Marcus said nothing for now.

"Alright let's go get some more metal and make the blades again. Hopefully we will be able to speed it up now that you have officially made one. Then we will move on with the hilts" he said as he walked off to go grab another bar of iron.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian merely nodded, happy for the practice. He set his first dagger aside and went to peruse the iron bars for another likely piece upon which to practice. The aura of the metal was clear through the heavy leather gloves he was borrowing to do this work, and it reminded him that Auristics were not entirely dependent upon sight. "The ideas behind crafting weapons and regular tools seem to be the same for the most part, except the need to harden and temper the blades. Is there anything else I'm missing? Or oversimplifying?" He set the bar into the furnace with tongs in order that it might heat up enough for him to begin to manipulate it. Not for the first time, he wished Eanos had helped him make contact with Izurdin. It would be lovely to have a god on his side while crafting such things.

[Marcus Braeden]

"I would agree with that in a sense. The basic foundations behind metalworking are pretty much the same no matter what you are creating. Its how you use those foundations that determine the differences between the different items that are created" Marcus tried to explain before placing his metal in the furnace.

Marcus watched the flames dance around the metal as the glowing embers heated it. And once again Marcus became hypnotized, and entered a sort of "dream state." He was still completely aware of the fact that he was working on the job. He and Hadrian waited in front of the furnace as the heat built up in the metal, Marcus made no sounds or movements and seemed completely focused on the fire with hands in his pockets. He was thinking; he was dreaming.

He pictured himself back at the camp where he was held, but this time, he was no victim. This time, he was a hero, or, at least that's what he pictured in his head. He walked the camp, sword in his hand, freeing each captive and killing anyone that was stupid enough to get in his way. Dreams of revenge were becoming more and more common for Marcus. The more he thought of it, the more he thought he was capable of it. He wasn't capable of it, at least not alone, and in the back of his mind he knew this. And that is why, all of a sudden, he said it.

"Last season...I was taken..." he said quietly. His vision disappeared inside of his head, and he was thrust back into reality, standing next to Hadrian in front of the furnace, as the metal reached the appropriate temperature.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian listened to his words, then listened to his silence, as content watching the play of excited djed in the forge as in any other occupation at the moment. Gauging the iron was a delicate business, he was learning. He had the Sight, which helped, but he wanted to learn the way of things as anyone else might to better increase his skill and knowledge. It wasn't until Marcus broke the silence again that he turned his head to look, then looked back at his rod of iron and removed it from the fire. His own djed began to emanate with calm, an emotional nudge that was the best he could do most days by way of hypnotism, and at least he wasn't making people do things they didn't want to do, but it seemed a helpful way to allow people to say difficult things. Of late, people had wanted to share difficult things with him right and left. "I see," he said, his gloves and the tongs keeping the burning heat away from his tender flesh.

[Marcus Braeden]

Marcus prepared his tongs to remove his metal from the flames. Using the tool, he reached into the fire, clamping down on the metal, and drew it out of the heat, placing it on one of the anvils they were using. Marcus then nonchalantly rolled his sleeves up, as if it were becoming a bit too hot in the forge for him. However that simply wasn't the case. He had gathered quite a few scars from the people that had taken him and Marcus wanted to reveal them. A few of them had faded but others were still noticeable. Marcus then began to forge the blade of the dagger as he had done before, waiting for Hadrian to join him at the anvils.

Once Hadrian arrived with his metal and was standing next to Marcus, Marcus smirked and casually said "Now you see." Marcus didn't glance at Hadrian. He appeared to be focused on the task at hand, crafting a dagger. As is the usual he bent and shaped the metal to his liking. This time working toward adding a slight curvature to the blade. But it was far from looking like he pictured it in his mind.

[Hadrian]

Well, whether the bumbling hypnotism was keeping Marcus calm or the young man was just self-possessed about it all, he seemed unlikely to explode. All the same, Hadrian was quick to follow with his metal held carefully in a tonged grip. When he came to the anvil, his aura was still billowing out farther than normal, calming and, he hoped, inviting. Marcus could trust him, but of course he didn't know that. Noting the scars with a clear glance, he got back to work. He didn't hide his gaze, but he didn't ogle and stare either. He began to hammer, falling back into his newly formed patterns of smithing. With frequent glances at Marcus' own work, he followed the slight arc in the shape of the blade, though it took him a deal longer than before and when their metal got too cool to hammer, he was not so far along as Marcus. But it was then he spoke again. "So you've got scars to show for it, unless those are from smithing." He smiled tentatively. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I'll listen if you do. The worst that's ever happened to me was in Sahova and I wasn't exactly kidnapped... Oh, or on the way to Alvadas... crazy illusionist with delusions of grandeur..."

[Marcus Braeden]

"Well I haven't exactly told anyone this, apart from the guy in the tavern who took me for a drunk of course..." Marcus chuckled. Marcus remained focused on his work as he continued on with crafting the blade. He took a few moments to gather his thoughts before starting his tale. It wasn't exactly the easiest thing to tell people about and this would be his first real time telling the story. Hopefully it would be the only time as well. But he felt he needed to put it out there rather than keep it all bottled up. He also made sure to exclude anything connecting to the Syliran Knights. He didn't need to be reminded of that dream of his. Right now, he had other plans, and whether they would lead him back to the knights remained to be seen.

Marcus calmly began "Back in the winter I made the mistake of venturing outside of the cities walls. I was simply walking around, minding my own business when I was suddenly knocked on the head with something. I woke up with a bag over my head and i could hear other people screaming, begging, and crying out." Marcus' voice faltered slightly but he managed to recover himself. "So I remained, wherever I was, for pretty much all of winter. The majority of the time my hands were bound and I had a bag over my head so i began to identify people by voices. One voice in particular I won't be forgetting anytime soon is the voice of a man. It was extremely raspy and it was usually the voice I could expect to be threatening me. Then there were voices of prisoners which came and went. Where they went I can only assume... " The metal needed reheating so Marcus went over to the fire and watched in silence, regaining his composure.

When they returned to the anvil, Marcus continued. "I finally managed to escape early this spring. When I thought I had a chance, I basically made a break for it. Eventually I reached the Kabrin Road. I thought I was home free, oh but silly me for thinking such a thing. I ended up riding with one of the traders traveling the road. Unfortunately bandits ended up ambushing us and he ended up dead. But I eventually managed to escape back to Syliras and here I am."

Marcus' blade was finished and adding an edge was the next step.

"Thanks for listening to me rant about that. Feels good that it's out there now" Marcus smiled, wiping some sweat off of his brow.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian blinked. Slavers and bandits in the environs of Syliras? Surely the knights wouldn't stand for it. They patrolled far into the Sylira region, maintaining as much peace as possible as well as their influence beyond Stormhold. He peered at Marcus, curious as ever. "You must have ventured rather far away or else these people were... either bold, desperate, or stupid. Did you... speak to the knights about it? Surely they would... Well, I know they aren't superhuman and they have limits, but they have quite a few resources at their disposal." Some of his better magecrafted items were among those resources. "I mean... well, I'm sure you know what you're about." That said, he turned his gaze back upon his work. The bouts of hammering were turning out a dagger not quite so well made as Marcus', but better than his previous attempt. And it wasn't done yet.