[Ironworks] To reshape metal (self mod)

[Eanos]

Spring 30, 510

Day had passed into darkness and the shift at the Ironworks who had been there for the day had long gone back to their homes and the consolations of their wives and families. But there was still activity in the great works and one of the figures who stirred there was an Isur, his race apparent by the glint of silver veins running across the black skin of his left arm; confirming what might have been guessed from the fact that he appeared nearly as broad as he was tall.

His face, calm and as relaxed as those of the men who’d gone back to loved ones carried a small smile as that black hand, a contrast to the rest of his bare upper torso with its pale skin with just a hint of a blue tinge, swept the top of an anvil clean and laid on top of it a hammer. A note as clear as that struck from a bell sounded as the hammer clattered down and the Isur nodded happily at the clear sound; the anvil sang to him as he transmuted a little of his personal essence and accepted what his fingers had already told him as they intersected with the aura of the anvil,

It was good to be here, the thought tripped through the mind of Eanos, the Isurian smith as he stood with hand caressing the horn of the anvil and watched the heat play in the forge which he had carefully banked. The firelight played soft and red from the very tip of the pyramid, fading quickly into a yellow heat a fingers width further down the pile of blackened coke. The heat from the forge bathed him and a trickle of sweat dripped down from the corner of his brow. Soon he would don the heavy leather apron which would protect his chest from sparks as he worked the metal, for even though his left arm was impervious to the heat, the rest of him was as vulnerable as any other man.

Turning away, satisfied with the way that the fire was settling down, he drew out a file from the rack near the anvil and clamping the hammer head down, dressed its face of the hammer with slow and confident strokes, each one a strident screech as metal was lifted away. Brushing the file he put it away and ran fingertips across the hammer face. It was rough work he intended next but there was no need for sloppy work, not if something could be done properly, or at least as well as he could. He was far from being a Master Smith, but pride in his work, pride in his race and its reputation as masters of metal meant that he intended that everything he did would be the best that he could. And so he was still here, though his muscles were still warm from a day of work at the forge. This work though was for him, for him to take the time to develop his craft and to learn the tricks which would make the difference. This night his concentration was on his study of Auristics, and the work, routine as it was, was merely a way of enabling him to concentrate his mind as his hands pursued a familiar path.

[Eanos]

Reaching into a bin of discarded metalwork which lay nearby, he extracted an old file which had passed the end of its useful life and now lay awaiting the fire to be turned into something new. He held it up and examined it closely; a delicate little thing, designed to chase the finer details of corners and the like and perhaps to file away the flash from moulded items. Half the width of one of his stubby fingers and barely longer than his hand, it seemed but a toy but he regarded it seriously and homed in on its aura, getting to know the feel of it and noting the differences where it had been used harder than it should have been on hot metal and where the pins of metal flakes still clung in the tiny chisel cut grooves in its cutting edges. The flakes flared with a different colour but as yet he lacked the knowledge and experience which would allow him to see into the file, to see how its use and construction had changed the way that the metals aura flowed inside it.

Holding it in his left hand he plunged it into the forge, sliding it between the lumps of coke so that the cone shape remained undisturbed and the heat of the fire remained concentrated inside. It would not take long for this tiny flake of metal to heat and so he forbore to work the bellows which would drive air into the fire and cause it to glow white hot. He watched for a short while and then tugged the end of the file which still protruded and had now turned a dull yellow. It was a delicate operation to heat something this small for it would so easily overheat to a white hot where the metal itself would burn brightly sending sparks out to hiss furiously through the air.

Most smiths would be gauging the progress by the colour of the steel and in truth Eanos did too, but he was more interested in how the aura reacted to the heat for it was a more reliable guide since he could feel it through his finger tips. He slid the metal back into the forge and nodded happily to himself. It would be but a moment more and he bent to tug a metal bucket half filled with sand closer to flames where it sat and warmed. When the file reached red hot he would withdraw it from the forge and plunge it deep into the sand. There it would be covered by more hot sand and left to cool during the night and when he came to take it out the next day the metal would have softened and be ready to be worked into its new shape. Since there was nothing more to be done with that project the Isurian smith made a start on what he might otherwise have done the next morning.

[Eanos]

The file was cold the next evening when Eanos drew it from the bucket of sand and brushed away those grains which attempted to remain attached to the forge dirtied metal. As he held it, he explored the aura with his eyes and also with his fingers as they stroked along its abrasive surface. It had changed from what it had been the night before, of that he was sure. Gone were the irregularities in the aura which hinted of the way it had been used and misused in service. Gone too were the pins, the old flakes of filed metal which had before distorted the aura by adding in their own. Now in its place the aura had normalised as the metal had settled itself in the heat but too there were now new intrusions from the dirt which was trapped in the grooves. It was hard to see that level of detail but if he took the time to concentrate it became clearer. Muttering to himself about needing better eyesight he placed the file down on the anvil realising that he was spending more time than he wanted to on it.

He slipped a clamp into the hardy hole of the anvil and locked the file into it. It was time to make some tests, though he was sure from the feel of the aura that it had annealed properly. The only doubt in his mind was the end which had not been sunk so deeply into the forge fire. If it hadn’t then it didn’t matter so much but he’d need to note it down so that he could remove it from the work. He did some test filing of the piece and was satisfied that it had lost all of its temper well enough that he could work the piece. The Ironworks had some degree of automation which would have made the next phase a little easier, but he preferred to work this all by hand so that he could monitor the aura as he worked. The file grated in his hands as it cut across what had been a file before he’d started working on it but he kept the pace steady, pushing it forwards and then lifting it back to the starting point, with each stroke the old file squealed and the aura shifted slightly in response giving the smith the momentary impression that the file really was a living thing. Perhaps it had a life of its own he reflected, some sort of strange metal life which he could not hope to understand, It had an aura, as did everything, so perhaps it had life as well? It wasn’t a notion which he discarded immediately no matter how far fetched it might be, because a prudent man did not waste materials but respected them, and if it didn’t have life, still he owed it a level of respect which would be much the same as if it did.

[Eanos]

His filing had produced a bar of metal, much as it might have been had he started from a newly forged bar, though without doubt it was also a very much harder way of doing it and surely a route few would have chosen if they had a choice. And yet for Eanos there was much to explore in it, and he had no need to hurry. His aim was to learn not to finish the piece.

He had already missed opportunities he knew, but it didn’t concern him, for there would be plenty of other projects in the weeks and months ahead. He could have simply reforged the file, or more to his preference forged it with another piece of steel of a different composition so that the final item had a more decorative finish, but it would have distracted from his careful study of the aura of this simple, single piece of steel.

Now though was the time for some forging because it was simply too much work for no particular gain in order to create the basic shape of what he sought. He slipped the bar into the coke and pumped the bellows so that the air above the coke leapt and danced with heat and the flames licked up towards the hood up which the fumes were drawn. While the metal heated the Isurian smith inspected the hammer which had been nestling below the anvil and took the time to push the file across it’s surface since there were a few minor dents in its surface. Care of tools ranked high in the things which Eanos cared about as would anyone who cared about the finish that those tools left on the item he was working on and easier to remedy the tool than remedy marks on the work.

Slipping the file into its own place he drew the bar out of the forge and inspected it with his eyes, not just for the colour but matching the colour to the aura. It was simple enough in theory and he did it because one day he would be able to see far enough into the metal to see what was happening inside, and that was just one of many reasons why he had decided to train first in Auristics and not taken the simplistic route of going straight to magecraft which was his ultimate aim.

It was yet to be hot enough for his liking and so he slipped it back into the flames and pumped the bellows again. The forge had its own aura though it was less solid than the steel and with care he was able to look through it to the work. It was still a strange sight though for the aura of the flames flickered and twisted so it was as though he looked at the steel through a coloured heat haze. It did not take the file much longer to reach the heat he needed and drawing it out, he took it to the anvil and worked it with the hammer, rounding it and extending it out into a smooth cylinder.

[Eanos]

It did not take long to reshape the piece to his liking though it was careful work and soon the hammer was slipped away into its holder and the file brought out again to smooth away the hammer marks and bring the metal into a true and smooth cylinder. One end he had worked into a cone and the file soon brought this into a smoother shape coming down to a point. One file followed another, each finer than the one before so that each removed the teeth marks left by its predecessor.

Soon the metal was to the desired shape, it’s aura now calm and consistent from one end to the other. But in this form the metal was far too soft to be of the use he intended so it was time to take it back to the fire, to once more watch as the colours ran through the piece from red through yellow and to watch the aura react to the changes. He shifted the position of the metal in the coke and pumped the bellows to ensure that the pointed end of the work was not cooler or hotter than the rest of it. Soon it was up to yellow and it would have been easy to allow it to slip into white hot but he reached into the flames, fingers of his left hand brushing aside the burning coke to extract the worked metal and then he carefully upended it over a can of oil.

It required care, the quenching of the steel especially something so fine as this. Plunging in too slowly would cool the metal at different rates and creating weakness in the structure of the metal. Plunging at an angle and the bar would bend sideways as one side cooled faster than the other. But the risk was not so great on this rather small piece and he plunged it in and held it. For a moment the oil was calm and then it spat out gobbets and caught fire. Black smoke roiled and caught in his throat making him couch and his eyes water, but he held on to the work and since he could no longer see easily through the muck he concentrated on feeling the aura of the piece as it cooled down and then he dropped it and allowed it to sink into the oil to complete its cooling.

Wiping his hand free of oil he then wiped the tears from his eyes and wandered over to his things where he extracted his water bottle and drank from it to wash clear his throat. Smoke still roiled from the can of oil, rising up and being drawn out of the forge chimney by the draught of the fire.

[Eanos]

The flames which had licked out of the can of oil had gone out and the smoke cleared so Eanos dipped his fingers into the oil and retrieved the bar from its bath. Wiping it clean he inspected it closely, his eyes staring at it as he rolled it in his fingers and also by staring along its length. It wasn’t as straight as he’d have liked and he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d not been careful enough in his shaping work or if it had been the quenching. But there was nothing he could do about it now for any attempt to bend the metal would most likely result in it shattering like a piece of glass. Narrowing his eyes at it as though it would somehow correct itself he sucked in a breath and shook his head.

Holding the point he slipped the piece back into the coals, pushing it home until just the sharpened point remained outside. Squatting down he examined it closely as the heat beat against his face and for all the protection afforded to his left arm, his face was as vulnerable as that of any man. Holding the spread fingers of his left arm in front of his face as a shield he watched as the colours of the metal changed and the colours drifted down the cone shape to the tip. As the colours shifted so too did the aura. He paid closer attention as the metal started to turn yellow, for the critical moment was small on a piece this fine. The yellow started to darken and he snatched it out of the heat. Just to a dark straw colour was what he wanted for the tip for this was to be a scriber. The handle part had got hotter and softened more and that was good for it would give the piece some flexibility. He studied it curiously as the aura shifted along its length. Now he had a length of steel with different properties in different places and it was for this that he had kept it simple. Had he played with the metal to create something more artistic then it would too have been more complex and harder to track the movements in aura against the specific actions he’d taken. Sometimes he considered that simplicity was an advantage and the mark of a better smith to make something whose only function was to meet its specifications exactly. And since he was satisfied he slipped the butt of the handle into the bucket of sand and left it to cool overnight. The morning would show whether or not he’d been successful in making the tool to the appropriate hardness.

[Dusk]

XP Award! Eanos XP Award Auristics: 2 XP Blacksmithing: 2 XP Philosohpy: 1 XP Additional Note You've not missed the mark at all on this! This is exactly what a training thread should be - exercising those skill you want your character to learn and grow in. You've also played well to your skill, in that Eanos didn't do everything perfectly. All in all a great training thread. As a note, keep in mind that at Eanos' age he wouldn't have to be nearly so careful about his skin - per the write-up, it's extremely dense, and will resist scratching and bruising, which probably means it would resist the small burns that are a normal part of blacksmithing. Granted, you shouldn't go sticking your right arm into the fire, but Isur by no means have bodies as fragile as humans.