After Isen had explained that Lorcan was an isurian, or at least partly, he was convinced. Even more so than he already was, but conformation now and again couldn’t hurt. It also explained why he wanted to create things so badly, it was in his blood! He had so many questions and so many things he wanted to know, but he kept it all inside and listened to Master Isen speak. He spoke of hammers and anvils, of chisels, tongs and fullers, it was overwhelming for Lorcan. He’d never been near such things, he had only read about them, asked questions about them whenever he could but never actually be near them… He tried so very hard not to burst into a waterfall of questions about everything. He had a look of excitement branded on his face but tried to hide it a little and keep his cool, after all this was his new boss!
Isen grabbed an unworked block of metal from his workbench, making Lorcan stare at it.
"This is iron, but we work many metals here. Copper, iron, gold and silver, steel... and for the most skilled, we have Isurian Steel. There's also cold iron, occasionally we do glass working and other things as well. All of these things and more sounded like a dream to Lorcan. He’d never heard of cold iron, or isurian steel or how glassworking really worked. But he wanted it all! "You'll learn it all in time, but for now you will be working mainly with iron and copper. Right now I'm making heads to pitchforks..." Isen then gave him a look that wiped the excited look off his face. Apparently this would get harder than Lorcan thought, he’d have to learn so many things and become skilled in so many techniques, but still Lorcan didn’t fear this, he was going to enjoy every second of it. "It may not sound like the most glamorous type, but it's an important tool. We don't always make weapons and armor. You'll have to learn to make the boring stuff too. Leave the weapon making to the experts for now, nobody wants a rookie made sword that falls apart in a fight." Lorcan didn’t understand quite so well what wasn’t glamorous about shaping iron into something useful and beautiful, what could possibly be boring about it, he thought to himself. And when Isen said he wouldn’t be making weapons for a while he was a little disappointed, but there were other things he would be making, so for the time being he’d be alright with it.
"So... would you like to give it ago. First lesson right here. Turn this block of metal into something else... I don't care what. Just do it." Lorcan’s jaw nearly dropped, he was able to hold his surprise inside for a moment but he was still quite shocked. "Are you sure I mean, I don’t..." He stopped talking and realized that this was a test… He breathed deep and tried to remember the smithing techniques from the book. It was a book on basics of smithing with at the end an entire chapter on lock smithing in particular. He slowly put his left hand on the iron and grasping it. He picked it up, pulled it closer and looked at it, all kinds of thoughts flowing through his mind… Eventually he put it back down, with a purposeful look on his face.
He knew what he was going to do, he grabbed a tong and used it to pick up the metal, then he quickly cocked his head towards the forge and placed the block in there. He looked around again, because he didn’t know where everything was and went through a box of hammers, randomly grabbing one. He felt the handle in his hand and struck the air a couple times, to see how it might feel. Waiting a while he eventually looked back at the forge, seeing his block turning reddish, so he sighed and waited some more, he had no idea what he was doing, just going on memory and instinct. After even more waiting and figuring out what shape he wanted to make, a knife, or at least something sharp.. He’d need a file or something. So he wandered off to find one, when he came back the iron in the forge looked about ready, it was slightly orange. Later he would learn that a yellow-orange color was way better for forging, but for now Isen said absolutely nothing, though internally he must’ve sighed at such a rookie mistake. Lorcan breathed deep, grabbed the iron with the tongs, placed it on the flat surface of the anvil and firmly grabbed the handle of the hammer in his hand. He swung the hammer upwards and rapidly brought it down onto the iron, causing sparks to fly off and one landed on him, which caused him to jump up and remember one of the basic rules: always wear a leather apron. He sighed again at this horrible mistake, looked around to see if there were any he could borrow after which Isen quickly handing him one, frowning for ever possibly forgetting that. Lorcan would of course learn that Isen was a man who allowed him to make his own mistakes, and learn from bruises cuts and burns. After gearing up properly Lorcan tried again. This time the sparks flew off again, but didn’t hurt him. They just bounced right back from the apron. Lorcan struck the metal a few more times and noticed it getting only a little bit flatter, so he kept pounding it until it budged a bit more. Soon the iron started getting too red again and he placed it back in the forge. He looked at Isen but he got nothing, he was on his own… This time he tried to poke up the forge, making the oxygen get closer to the flames so they could reach higher and burn hotter. Again the metal was barely orange before he started pounding it again. With every pound the metal became flatter and flatter, until he had a very irregular strip, rather than a block. So he started hitting the irregular spots exactly, until it got a somewhat flat shape, but the sides were much thicker than the middle, the exact opposite of what he wanted. So he reheated it again and this time put more precision strikes on the edges, making the iron come together in the middle. He still had no idea what he was doing, it was like his arms were working on auto pilot. As soon as he noticed the strip of metal becoming more blade-like he felt so proud, but he wasn’t done… It still needed so much more work, so with a passion as hot as the forge beside him he continued bashing the metal in shape. His strikes were crude and untrained but enough of those did the job just as well. Lorcan seemed to loose all track of time and space, his mind was finally calm instead of the chaos it always was, this was what he was made for, creating, shaping and transforming! All he could feel was his heartbeat, the hammer in one hand and the tongs in the other. Eventually the piece of metal that had once been a simple block was now transformed into a blade like shape. He flipped the blade with the tongs and grabbed it in his left hand, then he put the lower end against the anvil and hammered at them again, creating a longer thinner piece, to be put in the socket of a hilt.
As soon as he felt it was good he flipped it and hammered it again, creating a rectangle shape. Then it was time to change equipment and put down the hammer. He looked around and grabbed a file, with which he started to sharpen the ends of the blade, though leaving the rectangle alone. After that he looked back up at master Isen and picked up the blade, showing it to him.
After seeing all of that Isen picked up the blade and examined it. As far as he could see the blade seemed very crudely shaped, but when he ran his finger over the bladed part. "Auch!", Isen exclaimed, the blade was sharp... sharper than it should've been. "Heh kid... you've got some potential." He said while looking down at the heavily breathing Lorcan. "Won't go easy on ye though, that was one of the worst smithing jobs ever. You've got a lot to learn.
Come back tomorrow, at dawn. You are now an apprentice at the Defiled blade." |
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by Lorcan on January 29th, 2011, 8:27 pm 
