[The Ironworks] Forging in Miniature (Archailist)

by **Minerva Ravitz** on August 15th, 2014, 1:15 am

80th of Summer, 514 AV

Minerva had a special order to make. She'd promised a certain squire she'd make a custom blade, and she was going to make it. The Syliran Knights couldn't object, since she was supplying their order, and Ros Vizerian certainly wasn't going to stop her (though he'd definitely inspect her work). This wasn't the usual, however. Minerva was crafting a blade for the tiniest of warriors: a five-inch-tall squirrel! For such a small weapon, she'd make a mold to pour iron in rather than try to work metal in such small detail. Fortunately, she'd made the mold a day prior, giving her time to have it baked in a kiln to give it hardness. Today, she'd cast the iron itself. The design she had in mind was similar to a needle, but thicker; it had to be thick enough to withstand being jostled once jammed into someone's skin. She had formed the point to be as sharp as possible, then tapered the sword off so that it was more like a really narrow, really short jousting lance without a handguard. She didn't want to risk ruining the design on more protrusions than necessary. At any rate, she suspected that her customer would be perfectly fine grazing his hand against sharp stuff.

However... Minerva'd been rather slow in her work. Maybe a bit too slow. She wanted to take it carefully, one step at a time, since she had little experience molding a weapon instead of hammering it into shape. Though, her plodding methodicality meant she took longer than usual - and that the pickup time she'd given Arch the squirrel would end up being far too soon. As she worked, she hoped that Arch would be preoccupied with othre business to come by right at the appointed time. Perhaps, she hoped in vain...

by **Archailist** on August 15th, 2014, 9:23 pm

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

Oh goodness, I'm late. He could have sworn he'd arranged a suitable meeting for Minerva on the third bell past noon. But once again, the pages had appeared and his patron knight had insisted that he worked with them - not in training, of course.. but they needed something to do. Sylir knew they were utterly hopeless whenever he set them a real task of significance and he had a feeling the knights knew it as well as he did, because they never really gave the pages any particular tasks either, whenever he asked what they'd done. It was always wash the floors, deliver the letters.. occasionally one of them would be assigned to a certain knight for the day. They'd help in minor tasks, when the squires were busy training and the knights had a shortage of hands. It was funny, how the least important individuals could turn out to be one of the most valuable factions of the knights - helping in cooking, cleaning, and essentially every area of the knights as a whole.

As a group, they were indispensable. As individuals, they're petching nightmares. They'd managed to utterly mess up the deliveries and send them to the wrong knights, and the wet cobblestones they'd left behind from cleaning had sent a knight toppling to the ground and with him incapacitated for the moment, Ser Iros had been asked to take up the fallen knights place in the wing for patrols. And yep.. that meant a whole lot more time with the bunch of annoying little petchers that he could actually do a lot better without.

Needless to say, it'd been a terrible day. And now I'm late. Or at least.. he was sure he was. It was three bells after midday.. or was it five or six? Most likely five or six, but if he got there early, he'd be able to see all of the work as it went on. He'd never been to the Ironworks.. although he'd been given plenty of directions by knights along the way, once he informed them of his place inside the Order. And so, in and out he weaved between countless legs that never seemed to mind where they were treading, all the way through the Dyres District in the hopes that he'd make it to the Ironworks before he completely missed Minerva. This was, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In fact, this was more. This was a first, as far as he knew, in all of Pycon history. There's never been a Pycon sword created. A sword, designed by an actual blacksmith, specifically for the Pycon race.

He found himself swerving again around a small group of knights, likely on their patrol - and unfortunately he swerved in the wrong direction and nearly slipped underneath a hoof. It was nothing short of quick thinking and a it of luck that he managed to squeeze the side of Xarex, tug the reins in the opposite direction, and pull him around behind the leg of the horse, before slipping between its four legs and out the back. Even in the eyes of mortal danger, Xarex seemed content - with his tongue lolling merrily from the corner of his mouth, and tail wagging like crazy. He patted the dog comfortingly on the side, with only a moments rest before kicking him into what could have been, arguably, the fastest sprint the dog had gone through yet.

"Come on Xarex.. only need to pass through a few more streets and we'll be there." He could swear he could see the cross between the Dyres and the Bittern District looming up ahead.

by **Minerva Ravitz** on August 21st, 2014, 3:43 am

The bell rang three times, signalling the time Minerva was supposed to have completed Arch's new lance. She hadn't finished it. She looked at the door of the Ironworks in a bit of dread, not wanting to break her promise. She was actively working on the lance, so at least she wouldn't seem lazy, but she still felt a bit guilty. The feeling of guilt passed, replaced by a wave and sigh of relief, as Arch failed to show up. In Minerva's relief, however, she ended up jostling her cast and shaking the molten iron out of place -- she just barely managed to keep most of the iron in where it should be, with the stray spillage safely not burning her. She could file away the excess after it finished cooling. Fortunately for Minerva, Ros didn't see any of this happen, or else his yelling would have caused her to flip the mold, completely ruining this new weapon. In the absence of Ros's scolding, Minerva was able to regain her composure and resume monitoring her cast for any irregularities.

Four bells past. Minerva's relief turned into a bit of annoyance. Arch still hadn't shown up. She was still working, so it wasn't THAT big of a deal, but a full bell late? What could that squirrel be up to? Minerva continued her work, now planning out how to break the mold once the lance finished cooling. She felt confident in her work - it wasn't a perfect cast by any means, but the lance should well hold in combat, she felt. Once she filed away any protrusions, her work would be done. And then she realized her mistake. Wait, why didn't I plan for removing the mold?! Ros is definitely going to be upset when he finds out! What if he wants to outfit a whole bunch of jousting toothpicks! She'd made the mold in two halves, yes, but she had fused the two halves in such a way that pulling them apart to remove her creation would have been nearly impossible. She sighed as she resigned herself to simply destroying the mold, bracing herself for what may come next.

Five bells past. Still no sign of squirrel. Or was he lurking in the rafters, snickering? Minerva looked up and confirmed that Arch was not camping the rafters watching her work. She began to worry. After breaking the mold and filing off the excess iron, she apologized to Ros for ruining a perfectly good mold, and presented her work for inspection. Now worried about the squirrel, Minerva decided to take this opportunity to go outside and look around. She'd barely gotten to the door, however, when a petching dog BOLTED in and nearly knocked her down in the process...! She didn't have much time to curse the dog out, however, as perched atop its back was the customer who had kept her waiting this entire time. Finally!

by **Archailist** on August 23rd, 2014, 12:27 am

My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts

The sprint through the final streets was all a blur, right up until the moment he saw the sign, turned in.. and practically bowled one of the employees trying to make a quick exit. He was lucky that he'd kept a good hold of the reins through the sprint, or he likely would have been thrown off the dog in the process and straight into one of those damn molds. Instead, he immediately dismounted the dog and scurried over to the poor victim.. just to find, after all that time, it was the girl that he was supposed to be meeting. Goodness, it seemed like the day couldn't get any worse, and yet, here it was. "I'm so sorry! I was in a huge rush because of all the delays along the way.. petching duties." Sometimes, it just sucked to be a squire. All day, every day, it was just doing their duty. Although he supposed being a knight would be just the same. Just that he'd be assigning a lot of squires to their duty, while he did his own at the same time.

He needed a vacation or something. "I can't apologize enough..." He had to hover around the edge of the girl, because of course, he couldn't help her up again. He was just too darn small to be of any help to anyone - and of course, the tiny Sykanis dog just made things worse by winding around the girls heels, yapping and panting. "I know, I know, it was utterly inexcusable so there's no point. All I can do is apologize and hope that you'll find some way for me to repay you for all of this." Perhaps he was being a little bit over-anxious. Though with the dog yapping away, likely it was all just turning into white noise one way or another. If the squirrel had ears, they'd be ringing.

"Anyway.. ahem.. I was wondering. I know this likely isn't the best time.. Xarex, be quiet!" The dog's yapping quietened slightly, but continued as the dog sniffed and scurried about the floor, undeniably excited by a new place filled with new people and new smells.. if he had the squirrels acrobatic abilities, he'd likely be back-flipping around the place. "Anyway.. I know this likely isn't the best time, but you said you had a weapon for me? Or something of the sort?" The sword. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. "I trust it wasn't too much a deal for such an adept smith such as yourself to design?" He had total faith that she'd do an excellent job, after all. Although he'd never actually seen her smithing, he'd never seen any of her previous work, he'd never heard anything from those at the smith and he'd never heard anything from those around the order, or any of her previous customers about her level of craftmanship, the competence, the quality and the detail put into her weapons and armour. He was still sure she'd do an excellent job.

That's exactly what he told her, and what he let show. Inwardly, he was nervous. By goodness, he didn't know what to think. This was a very prestigious moment in the history of Pycon. This would be the first sword. This would be the only sword, currently. This would be the sword that everyone looked back on. This would be the sword that started it all - he and this blacksmith girl were pioneers. And what if the thing looked ugly, didn't even work, didn't even hold itself together for more than five ticks? This had, as far as he knew, never even been tried before. Not even tried!

He was sweating. Well he wasn't, he couldn't even sweat - more or less, the clay around his forehead and sides was congealing into small rivulets, that were running down his body and being reabsorbed once again. He needed to sit down or something. He needed to eat some clay. Even Xarex seemed to notice, because his ears were perked as he plodded back towards the clay man and the girl; a look of curiosity on his face as he nosed against Arch's side.

by **Katelyn Marks** on November 17th, 2014, 8:48 pm

Due Rewards

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

― Philip Pullman

Minerva

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Archailist

Skill	EXP
Riding: Dog	+1
Socialization	+1

Lores

➢ Py-Sword: The First of its Kind

Loot: Py-Sword!

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