Spring 44, 510
For once the hands of the Isur were both the same colour; a dirty reddish colour which had been the result of breaking up lump of unprocessed iron ore from the mine which Ros owned. But despite the hard labour which the work had entailed, work which was entirely unnecessary from some points of view since normally the mine did the processing work, Eanos was happy. Some might have considered the work beneath them, and perhaps the time would come when Eanos felt the same, for after all it was something which even the most unskilled could have done, hardly needing someone of the modest skill level which Eanos possessed. And since this work was often done by prisoners, that disdain was not unreasonable.
But the reason for his happiness as much as anything else was that this was the work ordained by Izurdin. Even as the hammer in his right hand had smashed down so too had the fingers of the left ripped deep into the soft crevices where the soft rust was flawed and dirt had seeped in. He gloried in the work as muscles bulging he forced the intransigent rock to his will. He knew that his god favoured effort and patience as much as he did skill. Eanos laughed and flung wide his rust streaked hands as the rock finally admitted its last defeat. "A worthy challenge my Lord!" he cried, his voice echoing back at him from the forge hood. There was a serious side to the work however and he sorted through the resulting pile of rust and dirt, separating the iron out from the rock with hammer and fingernails. As he did so he packed the iron into an urn, layering it as he went with charcoal so that now his hands were smeared both red and black. Coming to an end of usable iron ore he slipped a lid on the urn and carried it over to the forge where he settled it towards the back of the coals where it could heat and yet not get in the way of his work.
This was work that any smith worth his salt could do, for it was the simplest way to convert iron into steel. Perhaps not all smiths understood why this happened but then not all smiths were able to see into the heart of things. That lack made this process somewhat haphazard when done in such a primitive way but Eanos had an ace up his metaphorical sleeve. What he lacked though, he had to admit to himself was the matching skill to change what he could see in the way that he wanted to be able to do. His personal magic skill of Auristics gave him the vision that he needed in order see what was going right or wrong but he lacked any similar magical skills to then correct anything that might be going wrong. It was not a fatal flaw as such with this process as he could simply use brute force and dip into the molten mix with his fingers, but he yearned for the ability to have a non disruptive and fine control.
For once the hands of the Isur were both the same colour; a dirty reddish colour which had been the result of breaking up lump of unprocessed iron ore from the mine which Ros owned. But despite the hard labour which the work had entailed, work which was entirely unnecessary from some points of view since normally the mine did the processing work, Eanos was happy. Some might have considered the work beneath them, and perhaps the time would come when Eanos felt the same, for after all it was something which even the most unskilled could have done, hardly needing someone of the modest skill level which Eanos possessed. And since this work was often done by prisoners, that disdain was not unreasonable.
But the reason for his happiness as much as anything else was that this was the work ordained by Izurdin. Even as the hammer in his right hand had smashed down so too had the fingers of the left ripped deep into the soft crevices where the soft rust was flawed and dirt had seeped in. He gloried in the work as muscles bulging he forced the intransigent rock to his will. He knew that his god favoured effort and patience as much as he did skill. Eanos laughed and flung wide his rust streaked hands as the rock finally admitted its last defeat. "A worthy challenge my Lord!" he cried, his voice echoing back at him from the forge hood. There was a serious side to the work however and he sorted through the resulting pile of rust and dirt, separating the iron out from the rock with hammer and fingernails. As he did so he packed the iron into an urn, layering it as he went with charcoal so that now his hands were smeared both red and black. Coming to an end of usable iron ore he slipped a lid on the urn and carried it over to the forge where he settled it towards the back of the coals where it could heat and yet not get in the way of his work.
This was work that any smith worth his salt could do, for it was the simplest way to convert iron into steel. Perhaps not all smiths understood why this happened but then not all smiths were able to see into the heart of things. That lack made this process somewhat haphazard when done in such a primitive way but Eanos had an ace up his metaphorical sleeve. What he lacked though, he had to admit to himself was the matching skill to change what he could see in the way that he wanted to be able to do. His personal magic skill of Auristics gave him the vision that he needed in order see what was going right or wrong but he lacked any similar magical skills to then correct anything that might be going wrong. It was not a fatal flaw as such with this process as he could simply use brute force and dip into the molten mix with his fingers, but he yearned for the ability to have a non disruptive and fine control.
