31st Summer 515
Alija greeted the customers with a smile, welcoming them into the shop. It was a young couple, a week, feeble looking man with a book tucked under one arm, a scholar or such, and a pretty looking lady, wearing a bright patchwork dress which she swung round her, fiddling with the material. They approached gently, the girl with a smile on her face and the man a scowl.
“Can we get orders here?” the woman asked, grinning widely as she brushed back her golden hair, revealing pure white teeth. Alija nodded, a little amused by this couple. They weren’t exactly the most average of folk. “We would like a gate made, is that okay?”
Alija nodded once more, beckoning them into the forge, where she cleared a fairly large section on the ground and pulling out a piece of chalk. “What size would you like it to be?” she asked, bringing out a ruler to measure it with. The man took both from her, chalking out the desired size on the ground as she had intended to do, without saying a word, of course. It was about the size of an average door, just slightly shorter. Thankfully, not too big.
“And we’d like a simple design inside, like this,” the woman added, snatching the chalk off her husband and adding several vertical lines from top to bottom, each which branched off into two spirals at both ends, and in the middle. She rose again, brushing the soot and chalk off her dress, then cast a look at the blacksmith. “Feasible? Oh, and made from steel.”
“Of course! It’ll be very simple indeed,” Alija reassured, ushering the couple back out again. The metal request was rather odd, but she ignored it, ready to follow their instruction to the letter. She was eager to get started on this project, having had no forging work for days now, other than an occasional nail or horseshoe, simple things she could blacksmith blindfolded.
Alija shovel some coal onto the fire, working the bellows to cause it to rise so it was slightly larger and hotter than what she desired. What that meant was that the time she could back with the metal needed, it would be just right, and not have cooled down too much.
What she need for this project was three metal bars as long as the width, and five as tall as the gate was meant to be. She succeeded with the five, but was missing the third piece for the width, which she was planning on placing across the middle to support the metal. A slightly shorter but fatter piece would have to do, after being lengthened a little.
This was the first thing she worked on, heating first at one end and creating small ridges in the metal, before using them to draw it out in length. Once this was done, she slowly spun the bar on the face of the anvil, pounding on it with her hammer to smoothen it out. A similar process was applied to the middle, then the other end, until the bar had been drawn out to the correct width.
Alija greeted the customers with a smile, welcoming them into the shop. It was a young couple, a week, feeble looking man with a book tucked under one arm, a scholar or such, and a pretty looking lady, wearing a bright patchwork dress which she swung round her, fiddling with the material. They approached gently, the girl with a smile on her face and the man a scowl.
“Can we get orders here?” the woman asked, grinning widely as she brushed back her golden hair, revealing pure white teeth. Alija nodded, a little amused by this couple. They weren’t exactly the most average of folk. “We would like a gate made, is that okay?”
Alija nodded once more, beckoning them into the forge, where she cleared a fairly large section on the ground and pulling out a piece of chalk. “What size would you like it to be?” she asked, bringing out a ruler to measure it with. The man took both from her, chalking out the desired size on the ground as she had intended to do, without saying a word, of course. It was about the size of an average door, just slightly shorter. Thankfully, not too big.
“And we’d like a simple design inside, like this,” the woman added, snatching the chalk off her husband and adding several vertical lines from top to bottom, each which branched off into two spirals at both ends, and in the middle. She rose again, brushing the soot and chalk off her dress, then cast a look at the blacksmith. “Feasible? Oh, and made from steel.”
“Of course! It’ll be very simple indeed,” Alija reassured, ushering the couple back out again. The metal request was rather odd, but she ignored it, ready to follow their instruction to the letter. She was eager to get started on this project, having had no forging work for days now, other than an occasional nail or horseshoe, simple things she could blacksmith blindfolded.
Alija shovel some coal onto the fire, working the bellows to cause it to rise so it was slightly larger and hotter than what she desired. What that meant was that the time she could back with the metal needed, it would be just right, and not have cooled down too much.
What she need for this project was three metal bars as long as the width, and five as tall as the gate was meant to be. She succeeded with the five, but was missing the third piece for the width, which she was planning on placing across the middle to support the metal. A slightly shorter but fatter piece would have to do, after being lengthened a little.
This was the first thing she worked on, heating first at one end and creating small ridges in the metal, before using them to draw it out in length. Once this was done, she slowly spun the bar on the face of the anvil, pounding on it with her hammer to smoothen it out. A similar process was applied to the middle, then the other end, until the bar had been drawn out to the correct width.