[Dagwood Metal] Metal and Fury II

by **Daedalus Dagwood** on February 3rd, 2019, 7:00 am

1st Day of Winter, 518 A.V.

"Spruce vent runner and riser vent runner to the mold cavity..."

As the day progressed, Daedalus found himself slowing down since he his work rate outpaced the rate he needed to wait for the steel to finish smelting within the furnace. The cope and drag were both practically done which was why he reminded himself of the last two steps he needed to do, but he could just line those vents in the sandcast in a bell or two. Daedalus glanced over the clutter of wood shavings, various mold patterns, and tools on his table while thinking about what else he could get done. The amount of steel alloy being made was far more than necessary to create the pipe for Kane Baker, which meant he could either smelt the rest into ingots or just make something else.

He'd grown tired of making things like forks or spoons. They were tedious things that he let his sister make, mainly because she needed the practice, and she still thought of it as fun. He did not hate making them, but his scope of interesting builds were beyond spoon making. "A carving then... but of what?" His fingers started tapping against the tabletop while he tried to find something... "Wait?," his thoughts lingered on his fingers for a long moment as he remembered the golden hand statue at Tall Johnny's. "Hands of Ovek, sold along side golden dice of Ovek?" The Metalsmith paused before calling out to his younger brother, "Darik, you hang out at Johnny's. How many fingers does that Ovek statue have again?"

Darik peeked into the foundry from the shops entrance with a blank look on his face which made it clear he had not heard what Daedalus said. "You say something about Johnny's?" Daedalus sighed to himself before repeating the exact same thing he'd just said. "The golden hand statue, how many fingers does it have?" Darik's eyes drifted to the side in thought before he stated his answer in a mater-of-fact tone.

"The god of luck, gambling, wit, and mathematics? he's got Six fingers on his right hand. Everyone knows that. Its why the casino group are called Sixers. How did you forget?" Darik replied with a smirk before singing a childhood song Daedalus hd not heard in forever. "Six, two, and six, hit them with a sick. Miss them quick or Ovek pokes you in the eye." Daedalus had sudden childhood flashbacks of tournament where random kids would just try to not get hit with a stick, the last one standing being the luckiest alive. It was actually the tamest game kids played back then given they could have been robing people at dagger point like true urchins.

Daedalus began to hum a song that had been on his mind for ages, now matching the lyrics as he just realized where it came from. "I hate you right now. I've hummed that around this damn foundry for ages and you never said anything?" He said while standing up from the stool, reaching under off a shelf to grab another cope and drag frame that could fit several patterns for dice, and setting it on the table for later.

Darik smirked as Daedalus seemed annoyed at him. "You were they one petching humming it! I thought you knew the name of the damned song you were singing!" The annoyed Metalsmith said while picking up his personal rapier and walked passed his younger brother to head back to the forge where his sister worked. Darik tagged along behind his brother upon noticing Daedalus wielding the sword. "Listen, I've lots of things on my mind at any one point in time. I can't be helped to remember a random song from when we were just boot high to a candlestick." The words were spoken lackadaisical enough to not trigger an argument between the two.

"How are things going Gwen?" Daedalus asked as he turned to face Darik while raising the rapier up into a fighting stance. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the upper portion of the hilt so that the stylish knuckle bows and the loop guards extending down from the crosspiece could protecting his grip. The hilt was long enough for him to grip the pommel for added control, but he chose to utilize the weapon in one handed at the moment. He swung thrice in an upward arch that flowed into a down then horizontal slashing motion ending with the tip pointed at the ground.

"Slowly but surely." Gwen responded from where she raised her hammer to crash the steel against heated iron. Darik preformed a flurry of his own, slicing at the air in a mock display against an invisible foe. "Defend yourself." The younger Dagwood said with a smirk before taking a large forward step while swinging out with the flat side of his rapier. Daedalus knew he needed to learn to fight, which was why he enjoyed sparing with Darik since he was a far more competent swordsman. The weapon collided with his blade which did not slap it aside, since he was physically stronger than Darik from lifting metal into the furnace all the time. But his sword vibrated within his hand which caused it to grow slightly numb and cause his wrist to spark with a surge of sudden pain.

Darik lifted the point of his blade up to Daedalus's sternum with a smile on his lips. "Stab. You're dead." He shook out his wrist as he looked down at the blade pointed at him. "And you still suck." The Smith mused with a smirk, raising the blade of his sword to move the other weapons blade away from. Darik stopped going along with it half way which caused their blades to cross lock at their centers. "I won't always be there to fight your battles, Dalus." That caused Gwen to chuckle aloud. "Funny, I was just thinking about what you would do without me as the smart one around."

Both Dae and Darik glanced towards her with an annoyed sided eye. "More like the soft one." Daedalus huffed playfully which caused Darik to chuckle. Gwen lifted her hammer like she was going to throw it which cause the brothers to duck and run for the door. "And your are the old one, Old man!" She shouted at Daedalus as he hid behind the door frame with Darik. His back pressing to the wall to be fully out of view.

Word Count: 1061

by **Daedalus Dagwood** on February 24th, 2019, 12:32 pm

"No throwing hammers!" He called out from around the door frame. Gwendoline was a sweet girl, but her attitude changed when she was Smithing at the anvil. All the times that he'd nearly been hit by an errant hammer flashed through his mind as he peeked in at her. "I'm not going to throw a hammer at you, Dae. I'm a proper lady." The sounds of several over dramatic hammer strikes against metal emphasized her statement. He walked back over to her, passing by a table with his own hammer on it before standing right next to her. "Alright, I'll take it from here. I'd like you to take inventory of the storage room to see what we are running low on." His other hand returned his rapier to the sheath on his hip.

Gwen had put the piece of worked metal to heat carefully in the forge. The coal sparked brightly but he noticed it could have burned brighter. He put his gloves back on before working the bellows until the flames grew more violent. The iron slowly turned a bright red which he then pulled from the forge with a set of tongs to place on the anvil.

The sound of a heavy bell being rang started to echo out as he slammed the hammer against the heated metal. It was already halfway to being the require length, which he was glad his sister had managed to do. But she was too entertained by the hammering. She loved the activity of blacksmithing, though lacked the physical strength to hammer confidently. The bar was equal sided, but as he hammered against the top of it, the bar started to shrink into itself while the rest of its mass started to spread out sideways.

Daedalus flipped the bar over after every other few strikes to hammer along the edges to keep the spread from going to wide. Chimes flew by as he focused himself on the effort to draw out the blade. The rhythm of hammer stroke were only interspersed with the rapid changing of the face resting on the anvil and the necessity of setting it to heat back up in the forge. Darik stood there watching as Daedalus worked with a hint of brotherly jealousy. Crafting was never a thing he was good at.

The staring caused Daedalus to want to dismiss his employee. "Go clean something. Sweep the shop and keep an eye out from trouble." The tone in his voice was stern. It was how his siblings knew when Daedalus was being brotherly or professional. When the serious order was given, Darik went to grab a broom and sweep the shop since Daedalus returned to his hard work. Daedalus knew his brother would always agree to work when he was at his worktable of forge. It was his little brothers way of proving he was also proving his worth around the shop.

A bell and a half passed before he felt like he'd properly lengthened the bar. It curved upwards at the end of it, which he fixed by placing the blade flat atop the anvil to hammer the bend down flat against it after heating it. Once it was done he set his hammer aside to let the blade cool down naturally for further working.

He went back into the foundry to his worktable where the cope and drag remained. The frames laid open with the mold cavities exposed. The last he he needed to do was make small canals leading from the spruce and runner to the mold. It was a simple thing to do since it was literally just carving lines in oily sand. Daedalus retrieved a wood carving knife that he pressed against the sand to cut the gratings. Once that was done he removed the spruce and drag cylinders to leave holes in the sandcast for him to pour the metal in and escape later.

The last thing he needed to do was make make the small solid piece of wax mixed with hints of clay to be put in the mold. It was necessary for when he poured the steel. The molten metal would wrap around the wax-clay forming the walls of the pipes tube around it. The setting time for liquid metal to solidify took mere ticks of a chime to set, but would remain hot for a short time after. All he would have to do to clear the liquid wax at its center was pour it out after heating it a bit.

It was odd that bees-waxLedger: 5gms for 5 lbs of wax. was a staple of his life. The substance was something he carried in small amounts for creating things with narrow tubing, like a specially made pipe. He already had the wooden pattern of the pipe that he used for the mold, so he used that as a point of reference. Likewise, it if was too thick he'd not be able to set the wax into place in the negative of the pipe in the sandcast.

He wielded a carving knife in hand to carve away at the wax, whittling it down into shape. "Slow and steady. Don't cut yourself." He said as he ran the knife along the sides of a piece of wax. The shavings fell down onto the table, but the good thing about wax was he could pick up his mistakes to add them back to the main piece. "A narrow tip into a solid end." It took him forever to whittle the narrow mouth piece down to proper proportions. It was as hard as trying to inset a taper into steel. It was odd that a piece of wax had become the thing to frustrate him all day. Shaving off too much, needing to put some wax back, then starting over. The metalsmith had gotten it to a point where he felt confident enough to work on the end where pipeweed would be stuffed. That was just carving a wide rounded end with a protrusion which took minutes in the wax.

The patter was longer than needed with a protrusion because the ends of it had to hold itself upright within the casting. So like a pig on a pig on a spit, he used a finger to dig out slots for the the ends to rest in the sand. Daedalus placed the cope on top of the drag and locked the twin frames together with clamps on their sides.

Word Count: 1074

by **Daedalus Dagwood** on February 27th, 2019, 5:57 pm

The moments before pouring metal always made Daedalus's blood start pumping. It really did make him feel powerful wielding liquid fire with his sheer might of muscles. The only thing keeping him save being metal tongs and careful precision. He lifted the sandcasting frame up to carry it over to the blast furnace where he set it on the ground. The pipe would only need a slight amount of steel, which was why he went back to his workstation to grab a ready made clay mold that he could use to pour the rest of the steel into ingots.

"Tongs and crucible." They were typically next to the furnace hearth, but looked around to find them by the door to his office. He put on his work gloves before picked the tongs up from where they rested within the crucible, then latched the ends around the black metal pot to carry it over to the furnace. "Now to get rid of the slag." There was a slag runoff valve that needed to be turned, which he walked around to the back of the furnace where a waste crucible rested. And with the turn of a valve, a stream of blackened sludge extruded from a pipe to empty into the bin. Once a trickle of molten orange fell into the waste did he stop the flow, because that was molten steel.

He walked back around to do the same thing, only this time for the pouring of metal. The valve was turned which caused bright liquid fire to fill the container beneath it. The crucible itself started to radiate with a soft warm red. Once it was nearly filled to the brim, he turned off the spillway. Time was of the essence as he could not let the metal set. He clamped the large tongs around the crucible and took a heavy breath. He made sure to bend at the knees as he lifted the crucible off of the ground. It was as heavy as anyone might expect.

His breathing grew intense from his focus as sweat poured from his brow due to being so close to that intense heat. But, he was a smith. He had the appropriate strength to muscle it around. It was just at the precipice of being too heavy for him. Daedalus then contemplated lifting a crucible filled with metal from the storage room to better his strength. However, those were thoughts for another time as he gripped the handles of the tongs tightly to move the crucible over the sandcasting.

A slight tip was all he needed to do as he poured the steel into the spruce hole. He kept the stream light until the excess began to escape from the riser. Daedalus quickly stopped once it was done to pour the rest of the steel into the clay ingot mold, watching as it filled one mold, then flowed down a grating to fill the rest one after another until the crucible was empty.

With the crucible aside, Daedalus smiled as he just finished a custom order on his list while also refilling his steel supply.

Calender :

"Daedalus!"

There were few things in life that caused the Metalsmith to feel panic. Of all of them, the top of the list was hearing his brother Darik shout his full name. Not Dalus, not Dae, not DD... but his full first name given to him by his parents. He instantly drew the sword from the rapier on his hip as he ran towards the shop. Gwen appeared in a hurry from the shops door leading to his office which caused him to shout at her, "Stay here." as he exited the building.

Daedalus found Darik with both rapiers drawn as the Western Heights erupted into chaos. "Gwen, lock the foundry doors." He shouted from over his shoulder, causing his sister to slide the door latches into place. It left just the shops door open. "The Sun's are being attacked." Darik mentioned while pointing a rapier towards a group of Dragoons appeared to be ambushed by a larger group of hooded men.

"Its best we stay out of it. But, if the fight comes out way you are our best fighter." Daedalus said as he took a step forward just passing the younger Dagwood. "I'm not going to be able to kill anyone, but I can be a distraction. I'll try to get them to focus on me then you get them from behind." Darik glanced over at Daedalus, not saying anytime, but was proud of his older brother for being brave in the face of a fight. "Sounds like a plan, just don't get stabbed, Dalus."

The Metalsmith chuckled as he kept his eyes on the area. "If anyone going to stab me with a sword, its going to only be you. Lets just keep the foundry at our backs so no one can sneak up on us." The morbid joke caused the brothers to chuckle as they both found themselves guarding the entrance of the foundry.

by **Daedalus Dagwood** on February 27th, 2019, 6:26 pm

Self Grade