Completed [The Ironworks]Glass and Iron [Nya]

[Ethan Ironhorse]

9th bell on 32nd of Fall, 513 AV The Ironworks If someone had to say what one of Syliras' biggest industries were, armor and metalwork would definitely have to The Ironworks and the sheer amount of metal products produced there. Since Ros Vizerian also owns the The Lykolav Iron Mine, one of the largest in Mizahar, it also seems fitting that it was named for his mother who discovered it ages past. Now, fully supplied by its own prime source of iron, the Ironworks is the single largest forge in the region or even neighboring regions (outside of Kalea). The Ironworks was a normal result of the needs of the Syliran Knights, who demand a huge amount of armor, barding, and weaponry to keep at their task of re-establishing civilization in a world gone mad with disaster. However, the Ironworks aren't just about weapons and armor. Syliras has a great deal of agriculture and requires farm implements, iron for the outside of wagon wheels, and all sorts of fixtures, fasteners, and things like nails for building - rasps for farriers, horseshoes, and even bits for bridles. The Ironworks makes all of this and more. With the capacity for ten forges going at one, The Ironworks employs over fifty full time workers, most highly skilled. Ethan was spending the last few remaining bells of his shift opening up the shop for clients. He had spent the last several hours back at the blast furnace helping with a load of Iron from the Lykolav Mine. Smelting Iron was labor intensive and long, Ethan had started the night by filling the blast furnace with coal as directed by the senior apprentice of the shift.For Ethan it was a bit of a step down, he had worked at the Ironworks as a farrier for a while, but had never really been interested in learning the metalsmith trade. The furnace had been started with a wood fire and the ash was being pulled out from the furnace door as Ethan began to place coal into the stack of the furnace. The day shift had started the fire on the blast furnace, slowly they placed logs through the furnace door and built up the fire till logs could be placed on top of the furnace. It had taken the first shift eight bells to accomplish the task of stacking and starting the fire. The second shift had maintained the fire allowing the blast furnace to heat up. During that time the senior metalsmith apprentices had begun to toast the Iron ore on fires, allowing the ore to crack the rock around it when it expanded and letting the fire die out to retrieve the left over reddish ore. Junior apprentices got to sweep up the rock and ash. By the time Ethan’s shift had come in, that had just finished cleaning up. Now that Ethan was training in the fighter’s pit, he had switched to the night shift at the Ironworks. Of course, the only reason why there was a nightshift at the forge was the long time it took for the furnace to melt and extract ore. Ethan began putting pieces of coal on the wood fire. He was not yet skilled enough to clean the furnace doors of ash and allow for a small pile to form that would later provide a channel for the melting metal. No, Ethan had started as just as a new apprentice would for the metalsmith. He was here to pump the bellows and feed the furnaces. Right now he was carrying a large amount of coal up the ladder to the top of the furnace to slowly set the pieces of coal in. The heat from the wood fire below would set the coal on fire as it continued to drop downward. After filling up furnace stack with about a foot of coal, Ethan went down the ladder and took up position behind one of the apprentices. Taping his shoulder he began to pump the bellows feeding in air to the furnace. Two apprentices were required to operate the bellows for the furnace. As one pulled the bellows up the other would be pushing down and allowing the air to feed into the furnace, it was their job to work in rhythm with one another. The slow downward motion of the bellows made a great whooshing sound and Ethan could tell when the other apprentice was feeding the air into it. Ethan counted the time it took for the whooshing sound to start and stop, before he began his downward press, counting down as he pushed the bellows. Up and down, Ethan worked pressing the bellows. The senior apprentice went around to relieve the other apprentice so that he could take the time to feed the furnace stack. For half the shift Ethan and the other apprentice took turns working the bellows and feeding coal into the furnace, while the senior apprentice managed the ash. At mid shift Ethan was allowed to break by rotating with other apprentices and eat cheese and little bread. He sat by the forges and allowed himself a little bit of time to relax. During the night shift Ethan would be tapped to start firing up the forges for the next shift, which required more work with the bellows. Ethan returned to the furnace once his break was done, and started working at the bellows again. Yet this time he noticed the senior apprentice was layering ore and coal in the stack. Ethan knew that the easy half bell bellow rotation was done, now Ethan would work at the bellows for two bells on and half a bell off. Ethan continued to work the bellows, by the time his rotation was done, Ethan look at the blast furnace opening and saw a small river of orange iron beginning to flow downward into the casting channel. The senior most apprentice softly and carefully pulled out ash and hunks of rock for the slag pit and placed it into a bucket. Looking up, he saw Ethan and spoke, “Need some help with the smelting pot.” Ethan went over to a work table and a pot the size of a small barrel was on it. Strangely the smelting pot was made of clay and the senior apprentice was placing pig iron into it. The Iron chunks were placed in the pot till it was almost full, then the apprentice added some white choke. Smiling, he spoke, “Ros had determined the amount of choke to add to the pot, so I can’t even tell you how he figures it out, but what you are about to see is one of the secrets to forging Weapon Steel.” The senior apprentice placed broken clear glass into the pot, as well as sand. The quantities had been premeasured so Ethan had no idea what the ratios were. The Senior Apprentice smiled and looked up at Ethan, “The sand and glass will melt to a liquid state, capturing the majority of impurities from the iron. See pig iron is brittle due to all the impurities still in it, and even casting it into steel won’t get rid of it all, so we use a clay smelting pot with glass mixed in. The glass floats on top of the metal along with the slag. As the vessel cools the glass hardens before the metal and captures the small impurities up top. When we smash open the vessel the clay sides capture the slag that had floated down to the bottom. As such the steel is much more pure and can be used to create weapons.” The senior apprentice was doing his job, and it might take years for Ethan to develop the trust to learn how to determine how much choke, sand, and glass to use to take out the impurities, but the lesson was appreciated. Ethan grabbed a long pole with a hook as the senior apprentice used clay to seal the smelting pot closed. Once done, the both of them worked as a team to lift the pot and place it in the furnace. Pushing it off to the side and allowing the ability for several more pots to be placed in the furnace as they smelted iron. The rest of the shift went without incident, Ethan warmed up the forges for day shift smiths and began cleaning the shop, placing stock on the shelves, and generally making the shop presentable. Stretching, Ethan took a rag to the counter top to clean it one more time and then unlocked and pulled open the door to show the world they were open for business.

[Nya Winters]

The smell of hot metal was an assault on her senses. Ash permeated everything. Each scent layered over the top of other scents from the actual smell of the metals to the heat of the forge through the cool scent of oil caused the forge and the shop to light up to her other senses, not fooling her eyes with the cleanliness all around her. Nya could pick apart the woods used to fire the forges and the metals themselves from the layers of flavor floating in the air. Humans. They were so blind to their senses. Nya stalked into the shop, looking around, feeling out of place and awkward.

Her hair trailed down her back, tangled and unkept. Her clothing was ill-fitting, as if it had been selected from a booth of second hand garments rather than tailored for her body. Her boots fit but were half unlaced. Moss green eyes scanned the area, watchful and wary. She stepped into the shop, walking like someone that lived entirely in her skin, not one of the residents of Syliras that lightly dwelled in their own head and ignored the rest of their form. Nya scented the air again, noting those living and where they were located. Then, with one last sweep of her predatory gaze, she came all the way into the shop and began to walk around. The woman was watchful, careful, and despite the way she was dressed, she moved like a wild thing ghosting into the light from the dark beyond. She oozed control and power, her hands reaching out to stroke metal instruments and blades. She examined a few things but moved on, purposeful, looking around for something specific.

She passed weapons reverently, stopping to touch a hilt there or test the sharpness of a blade there. And then she moved on, treating farm implements as if they were as important as the weapons, giving them equal caresses as she continued her search. The woman paced from one display to another until she worked her way towards hand tools which she slowed down to study intently. She paused at the hammers, pulling a selection of six of various sizes out and studying each intently. Some she rejected, others she tucked into the crook of her arm cradling them like a mother would a child.

Next she moved on, pausing to look at a selection of clamps, noting how they worked and what they did. Nya's sharp eyes missed nothing, and her touch often followed her gaze as if reinforcing for her what she saw. Finally, she paused in front of the display of tongs. She rummaged through them until she had a set of six, from very small to a heavy duty size. She placed them in the crook of her arm as well, knowing not everything she was looking for she'd found.

Her eyes roamed a bit more, finally resting upon the man tidying up the shop and lingering. She noted his scent and how it wove in and out of the shop, lingering here and there and tinged with masculine heat mixed with that of the smell of the forge and metals. Unusual. A smith, she labeled him, her eyes studying his hands and his strength, wondering how much of these tools he had created himself.

[Ethan Ironhorse]

Ethan first noticed the woman as she came in, and the thought that she wild like the sometimes mountain men and hunters that Ethan would meet came to him. It was strange meeting them, people who lived on the fringe and in the wilderness. For some reason, Syliras seemed to attract people who survived the wild and prospered. It was probably due to the simple fact that the Knighthood defended the area and would respond to creatures or Wild Djed beings quickly. Still for Ethan, he often question all the tales that he was told about the dangerous wilderness as a child. It seemed like the more he grew older the more his childhood certainties became grey. Normally, Ethan just tried to contain such wild people before they did damage to the shop, but as the woman touched the weapons with a special reverence he calmed himself. Some people would go to the swords and pick them up and swing them around, in which he often wondered why? A swing of a blade could tell the user it was balanced, but that was a simple movement not some wild swing that had more muscle then brains in it that most people performed. So as the woman gathered hammers and tongs, Ethan continued to use a rag to dust the merchandise. Working in a forge, iron dust seemed to gather everywhere, not to mention the coal that they burned in the forge fires often lightly dusted the area with a white flake of ash. Cleaning the shop was a never ending process and eventually after cleaning and dusting all the surfaces of the tools and weapons he would need to get a broom and sweep the shop out. Slowly Ethan began to wipe the shields and armor section, Ros only kept a couple examples of shields and a breast plate with greaves as statement of proof. The real work was often down behind the shop and with an order and customer in mind. When Ethan was just an apprentice, he had asked one of the senior apprentices why not make all the armor and shields in between projects. The answer that he had been given was simple, armor needed to be custom made to the user. Weapons were simple and hilts could be knocked off or replace to better fit the user easily, but good armor was custom tailored to the user. A full knights armor could be forge easy if no one cared about the man or woman inside, but constant measurements needed to be made and the armor needed to be readjusted before setting the final hardness of the steel. Most people didn’t realize that the armor plate was very brittle to strikes until the proper flame and quench brought a spring to the metal. Ethan hadn’t learned the proper technique to evenly bath the piece in heat and then quench it. The pieces he did were often small and still had brittle spots, so to do a large breastplate took a skill that required many bells at the forge. After dusting some of the ash off from the inside of the breastplate he noticed the bundle in the woman’s arms. A confused look crossed his face, as he approached the woman. “Excuse me Miss, but could I help you find the proper tools for your project?” Ethan friendly smiled and offered a hand to the woman to accept some of the tools from her. Briefly looking over the tools Ethan was confused by the selection, one hammer was a simple club hammer much like a mallet used in general purpose brute strength applications. Yet she also possessed a cross pein pen hammer used in carpentry for lightly setting nails or in place of a joiners mallet with a board. Now granted Ethan could understand that if she was doing some carpentry work that she would require the two hammers, but she also had a rock pick and splitting maul. Along with the various types of hammers, she had chosen different tongs. Now tongs were used in places were heat was involved. The short tongs that the woman had was used for either grabbing hold of something in a pot of boiling water or to hold on a glass bottle while heating it during philtering. The long set that she had was used for high heat fires and heavy objects, Roz sold them as blacksmith tongs or for large hearths. The tools almost seemed to be chosen at random and without a specific thought of the work to be done.

[Radiant]

Ethan :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Metalsmithing	+2 XP
Observation	+1 XP

Lores

Lore Earned

Metalsmithing: Clay And Steel Mould

Loots

Nya :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+1 XP
Investigation	+1 XP

Notes :

Since it's abandoned, not much I could give, but still, enjoy your grades!

My radiance is not bright enough?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, beam me a PM and we can work it out.