A day of work (quest closed)

[Rith]

It was early morning when Rith awoke. The cool damp air outside seemed to always energize his body, and though he shivered, it seemed an overpowering feeling he couldn’t resist. Rith stood and he nudged his heavy fur blanket from his body to the end of his aging red oak bunk. He stood and stretched his arms high in the air all the while, yawning. He slouched back down in his bed for another minute and admired one of ancient broadswords he had mounted on his dark wall. He gazed around his home at empty weapon and armor racks but he admired his small but growing collection of assorted weapons and armaments. With only an old iron dagger, a hefty iron battleaxe, an aging Oak bow his father gave him, and a fine looking piece of iron chainmail mounted on the racks, Rith was impressed. It had only been just a few months since he arrived here at this unnamed mountain and found the old cave once smelling of rotting animals, decay, and stale air that he now called his home.

Rith stood from his bed and straightened the thick fur blanket back across his bed to make it seem he half-assed cared what it looked like. He walked towards the corner of the room and grabbed his iron chainmail and draped it over his head and down upon his broad shoulders. He moved about the room to a pile of logs stacked beside his fireplace he had dug into his home. He grabbed a couple and dropped them underneath his cooking stove and began a very smoky fire. Damn this damp wood, I knew I should have brought it in the night before. After a moment of loud heaving and coughing from the thick white smoke, the fire caught and Rith put on his boots and slipped his dagger in his waistband. He grabbed his small blackened and dented kettle and stepped outside. Dipping it in his rain run-off barrel which he used for fresh drinking and cooking water, Rith came back inside and put the pot of water on the stove for his morning concoction of tea. It usually consisted of brewing tea leaves and a few rather large splashes of one of the strongest brews of ales the closest town offered.

While his tea was simmering, Rith opened the door to his personal smithy he had only finished a few weeks before, deep within his cave-side home. Heading back outside, Rith went towards his much larger pile of assorted split lumber that lined the outside wall of the cave entrance. He brought in several loads of wood and stacked them up against the wall opposite of his new furnace. His personal smithy included his large furnace where he was able to smelt small quantities of ores to make his own metals for hatchets, short-swords, and other small weapons. It also included many different sized anvils, many wooden workbenches, tables and large chambers for storing various quantities of ore and metals. In all, his smithy extended roughly 60 feet within the mountain and was nearly 80 feet in width with a ceiling standing around 7 feet. Taking into account the general vicinity around his furnace and the chambers used for storing ore and metal were overlooked. The better depicted workspace was rather more along the lines of only 20 by 60 feet. Still, this was by no means a small smithy, but he spent countless hours carving and hauling out the interior of the mountain so he would have the room to expand at will.

Today, Rith was to begin working on his first order of work he had received, a shipment of Delyn pikes was ordered by a local noble for his personal guardsmen. It was a well off good week’s worth of work and it gave Rith the chance to put his new smithy to good use. Considering that the pikes were to be made of Delyn, Rith would need to take his time with them. Delyn was still a metal he had only minimal experience with because he only had worked with it many years ago and until this point was really only familiar with steel and iron. The noble promised he’d pay Rith accordingly if the pikes were made promptly and with little flaw. Delyn pikes were going to be a challenge for Rith not only because of his little experience with it but also considering that forging pikes, was not a strongpoint either. Rith rarely ever had the need or patience to even make them, considering their somewhat impractical use and he just in general hated the damned things for weapons.

Soon Rith went back to his living area to his tea. He poured himself a small cup of the brewing concoction. It had a strong smell of barely, enough to give most a headache just from a whiff of the drink. Steaming from his cup the thick drink filled the damp room with the hot steaming smell. Rith took a sip that made him cringe. The tea burned the edges of his chapped lips, its syrupy texture slid between his lips and into his mouth where he swished it between his cheeks. A moment later he heard a thundering knock on the door that startled him and echoed throughout his home. He spilled the hot liquid on his inner thigh. “OWWWWW!” Whoever this is better have one damned good reason for being here. He slammed the cup of tea down on an oak table near his bed and called to the person at the door in a bitter tone, “Just a damn moment”, but the stranger pounded on the door again, sending more of the thunderous sounds through his home. Rith this time a bit ill-tempered yelled to the stranger, “I SAID hold on a damn minute will you; I think we’ve established you’re outside!” To hell with fucking impatient people! He stomped towards the door where he yanked it open expecting a dragged out formal greeting that seemed ghastly important as he was eager to get his attention. This was by far a formal greeting though, the stranger plowed in through the door sending Rith into a stumble backwards where he nearly cracked his head against one of the weapon racks holding his battleaxe.

Catching him-self, Rith instinctively reached for his dagger stashed in the waist of his trousers. Within a second he had the intruder gripped by the neck with his dagger driven into the man’s jugular vein. Though Rith had yet to draw blood, he was on the verge of severing the intruder’s neck. Rith angrily growled to the man, “You better have one DAMNED GOOD reason for intending to barge in here on me like this. You’ve no right invading one’s home for what ever it may be, to rob me or what the hell ever, YOU’VE NO RIGHT!”

There was no response by the intruder. The man stood there in complete shock, frozen in time in seemed from the situation he had just gotten into.

“I…I…I…Uhh…I…Umm…Uhhhhh”, was all the man could manage to break the silence with.

“You can’t even speak! Babbling like a damned baby isn’t a good enough reason for me to not gash a 6 inch hole in your neck and let you bleed to death outside! I suggest you try one last time or we’re doing this my way”, growled Rith.

Still in utter fear, the man collected himself and muttered, “I… I… I’ve nuh… no intensions of rob…b…b…bing you sir, nor did I intend to hurt you. I wa… wa… was only tr… trying to… bears outside. I… I feared for my life, an… an… and was... escape. When you opened the door, I panicked and pushed in. I’m ve… ver… very sorry, but if you in… intend to k… k… k… kill m… m… me, I… I’d much rather tempt my fate outside.”

Rith eased his dagger from the man’s throat and released his grip of the man. Still in shock, the man stumbled over his own feet and Rith laughed under his breath at the clumsy man. What a fool. The stranger gathered himself and turned to face Rith. Rith gazed the man head to toe as this was actually the first time he saw the man’s face. Looking to be in his mid twenties, the man was probably 5’10” tall, he was lean and probably only weighed 150lbs, he had a bit of scruff and hadn’t shaved in likely a week, he had wavy brown hair that just covered his ears (though it was in a neat fashion, obviously done my a hairdresser), dark blue eyes, and a skinny nose. The stranger wasn’t very muscular though he seemed like he would make handy work with a dagger or possibly even a short sword, he was probably of a higher class judging from the royal blue silk trousers lined with a white stripe down the left and right legs, the matching blue silk shirt with the same white stripe down each arm, leather sandals, and lastly the seemingly large coin pouch tied around his waist.

“Next time you decide to run from something, I suggest you don’t barge into another man’s home expecting hospitality. Expect a dagger to the gut or have your throat ripped from you neck. Consider your-self lucky, this time”, Rith spat to the man.

Still somewhat frightened, but extremely relieved, the man softly replied, “I understand sir, and I thank you for not, well, ripping my throat out.”

Rith stepped back, “What’s your name?”

“My name is Arthur Richardson”, he replied. “You, I presume are Rith, correct?”

Startled, Rith looked over him again and asked, “Aye, and how did you know my name?”

Struggling to sound normal, “Well, I’ve heard about your smithy from some of the local farmers and word has it that a noble’s has asked you to do work for him. Also, seeing some of the weapons around your home, I guess I merely put two and two together.”

For the next few moments, the two became somewhat better acquainted, daggers aside. Rith put on another kettle of tea for himself and Arthur, seeing as his was now cold and when his tea cools, it thickens to a state nearly of cooking grease, and frankly Rith wasn’t all too enthusiastic about drinking that. Rith explained to Arthur some of his brief history and that he’d just finished his smithy and was ready for work. Arthur promised he’d recommend everyone in the area to come to his home as a favor for not taking his life. Arthur also told Rith he’d be back within a week because he would need a bit of personal armor made for him-self and that he’d like Rith to do the job. Rith graciously accepted the man’s offer but under the condition he’d bring adequate metal of what ever sort, and also in good faith and benefit to Arthur, that he’d cut the cost by 15% for him. Arthur soon bid his farewell and Rith began preparing the furnace for the Delyn pikes.

Rith went outside a few moments after Arthur had left. It had started to lightly drizzle outside and there was a slight breeze with a bit of thundering off a few miles away. Rith spent an hour or so hauling around 200 logs in from his wood stack outside of his home. It was now a steadily raining out and the winds had picked up. Soaking, Rith continued bring the wood inside and down into his smithy so the logs could dry. He piled the wood up and soon moved to get the delyn metal stashed in one of the vaults he had. He gathered what he though adequate and laid it across a few of his workbenches. He also went and gathered 6 long spear shafts and other tools he would need for forging the weapons.

[Rith]

Wednesday morning was just another morning for Rith, and still storming as he expected. This was nothing out of the ordinary from his usual morning routine though, despite a slight burn to his hand from accidentally brushing his against the hot stove the night before. Afternoon came slowly as he began finishing the last perfections on the first pike. The black metal looked astonishing on the pole, and if the pikes were to be polished, they’d get much attention as a display item. Evening came, and he racked his first production from his smithy on a weapon rack out near his front door. After praising himself for a few moments and admiring his first piece of weaponry made from his home, he soon began work on the next.

This routine continued for the rest of the week. The storm finally passed over on Friday and there was still no sign of Arthur. On Saturday afternoon, Rith completed the order of pikes, about two days earlier than he expected. He remembered that the local noble liked decorations so he decided that he should string a couple squirrel tails from where the pole and metal pike actually met.

He went to where he kept his bow hung on the cave wall above the foot of his bed. He put on his shoes and grabbed his quiver propped alongside the end of his bunk. Rith went outside and lazily walked down a muddy path to a small pasture about half a mile from his home where he knew there would be an abundance of squirrels. It was a beautiful day outside, 65 degrees, with the birds chirping in the tall pine trees overhead, a slight easterly breeze, and only a few clouds in the sky. The breeze bit into his skin, but the sun quickly warmed him up, a perfect day. The woods still smelled fresh of the rain, cool and clean, but the paths were still muddy and a bit damp.

This’ll give me a chance to brush up on my archery skills, make a nice stew tonight, and also make an extra bit of pocket change.

He moved down to the edge of the pasture and walked out and looked around. There was a very small river running a good 50 yards off separating the field almost perfectly in two. There were a few large rocks that stuck out like sore thumbs, emerging from the ground, but the pasture was littered with others so it was not suitable for farming.

Soaking up the warmth of the sun, Rith picked his first squirrel sitting about 15 yards away nibbling on an acorn on one of the smaller rocks. He notched his arrow and took a steady aim. He had the squirrel in his sights and he shot. Within a second the arrow was stuck in the ground just to the squirrel’s right. The squirrel fled as if you’d startled a deer grazing a pasture, though there were few ever seen in this one.

He turned to his right and walked a few paces. He eyed a squirrel standing on its hind legs sniffing the air. This was an easy shot, the squirrel naturally made itself as large as possible, so it was going to be hard for even Rith to miss this one. He notched the arrow upon the string rather quickly, before the squirrel had the chance to run off.

TWAG

The arrow struck the squirrel just as it began to run. Rith walked towards the now dead squirrel and pulled the arrow from its lifeless tiny body. He wiped the blood from the arrow’s tip onto his leather leggings. He picked up the dead squirrel by its bushy tail and looked around the pasture for one of those rocks in reasonable distance to stash the squirrels. He spotted a rock near the river bed and laid the first body there.

After more frustrations of missing squirrels than he intended, Rith returned home 5 to 6 hours later with his collection of squirrels. In all, he killed twelve, two for each pike. This was also enough to make a stew to last him a few days.

[Rith]

As he entered back into his home, he went over to his oak table and dropped the bodies there, and also gathered a few logs to place in the fireplace in preparation of boiling his stew. After about an hour and a half of skinning, removing tails, and cleaning the furs, Rith began making dinner. He spent an hour cooking the stew, adding a few herbs, vegetables, spices, and only a bit of ale for flavoring and texture. While the stew simmered, he began fixing the tails to the pikes. It was a delicate process of threading a piece of string through the end of the tail (and managing not to destroy it) and then notching the other end of the string through where the pike slid over the pole. He chiseled a tiny hole in the ends of the metal so he could thread the string through the hole, down between the wood and metal so the tails would stay attached.

After dinner was finished, he had already fixed 2 of the 6 pikes with the decorations. He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and filled it with the stew, while at the same time preparing another one of the pikes.

Two hours after dark was when Rith was finally finished with adding the tails to the pikes. He went straight to bed afterwards and to await an arrival of a servant to pay Rith for his work within a few days.

The next morning, Rith awoke later than usual. Getting out of bed and pushing his covers aside, he turned and dropped his feet to the floor. He made his tea and sat around for about an hour and reheated some of the stew he had made last night for breakfast.

It was another cool day outside, perfect for working. He walked lazily to his furnace room and looked at his overall stock of metals which were neatly spread against the foremost wall of the room. Rith looked at his dwindling pile of delyn and pondered upon making himself something or saving it for a later date. He turned to his iron and steel piles and thought of making himself a new axe.

After a few minutes of pacing he decided just to make some delyn bracers and shin guards. Noon approached rather quickly and Rith soon fired up his furnace and began reheating some small leftover delyn sheets. He took the plates and laid them across the glowing red-orange embers within his furnace. After letting the metal turn soft, he began beating a sheet into a crude outline of shin guards. It took an hour until he finished the repetitive processes of heating and beating upon the now dented and deformed piece of metal to get the general shape he was after.

It was time now for Rith to start molding this plate of delyn into fine pieces of work. He began the process of slowly working out the dents and battered parts of the metal into a fine, smooth piece of armor. Night soon approached and Rith had finished both bracers and one of the shin guards. I may as well finish the last one while the furnace is still going and so the armors can cool over night. He finished the other shin guard soon after and eagerly went to bed.

The next morning came too early as there was a pounding on the door. Rith groggily crawled from his bed and grabbed his dagger.

“One minute please”, he cried out.

He slipped on his leather leggings and went towards the door. He lifted the latch and pulled the door open.

“Arthur! What brings you here so early?”

“Ah, I’m here to fulfill the request I made earlier this week. I’ve brought you a small bit of mithril, and some strips of delyn wire. I hope it’s an adequate amount of delyn for a chainmail, and enough mithril for a pair of bracers.”

Rith looked outside to see an old donkey-drawn cart driven by a small boy carrying the metals, there was also a potent stench. Rith could smell the ass from where he stood, wondering if the donkey had been rolling around in its old feces’, or if it was rotting itself away. He turned away with a sour look on his face, unable to imagine how anyone could stand the smell of that thing.

Rith looked back at Arthur and casually began, “Aye, that’s plenty. I’ll begin working this afternoon. The mail is going to take a week, possibly longer because I’ll have to clip the strips of wire and make the rings myself. Ah speaking of which rings, would you like flat or rounded mail?”

Puzzled, Arthur asked, “Excuse me? I’m not sure what you’re talking about Rith. Rounded or flat mail?”

Rith grinned at Arthur as it was a chance for him to boast about his knowledge of armors. He confidently and with a bit of spunk in his tone said, “The flat rings are very good physically against bladed objects such as swords, and axes. But, spears, arrows, and other narrow and pointy weapons of the sort can, and do penetrate the mail much easier and further. An advantage to the flattened mail is that it’ll be lighter as the flattened rings occupy more space so less is needed. The overall integrity is somewhat better than rounded rings because they have less room to deform.”

He paused for a brief moment and looked at Arthur. He seemed quite intrigued at the physics behind simple rings of metal. Rith started again, “Now, when it comes to the rounded rings, they’re suited much better against spears and arrows, and equal towards bladed objects as the rings are tighter together so more are needed which makes the armor somewhat heavier. Any blunt or bladed object that comes in contact with rounded rings though, if struck hard enough of course, can damage the armor by flattening the rounded ones, but that’s usually not likely. If some rings by the off chance are flattened, the armor may be less effective as some of the overall strength of the rings are lost, and the mail will become “stuck” together if you understand how that’d possibly work out. If damaged rings are left unattended over a period of time, the overall integrity of the mail will decrease and risk of injury will become grater.”

Amazed at just the complex, yet simple mechanics with rings of metal, Arthur turned and said, “Well Rith, I didn’t know there was that much behind simple mail. But, seeing as you’re quite confident in yourself with it, I think I’ll go with rounded rings as it sounds a bit safer. If for some reason I will need a repair, I know who I’ll be coming to.”

Rith said to Arthur, “I’m glad I’m to be of assistance to you sir. May I offer you a cup of tea before you leave?”

“No thank you Rith. I must be going as I have other matters to attend to this morning. Shall I stop back by in 5 days to have an update of progress of when to return with your payment?” Arthur asked.

Rith simply replied, “Certainly. Well, I must offload the metal before any work can begin.”

Rith went out to the cart to the stench of that wretched donkey and began to unload the strips of metal for Arthur. The boy was instructed to carry in what delyn he could manage. Rith picked up the small sheet of mithril and took it inside to a special workbench next to where all of the delyn wire laid. It took around 20 minutes of hauling the metal inside through his home.

I’ve got to see about digging a small cart entrance to shuttle metal in and out of the here. This could get a little hectic as time goes on. Ah, well I can’t do it now, maybe soon with a bit of help. Who knows, maybe I can get a few hired hands from Arthur for the job. Ah quit pondering about things you doubt may ever happen, Rith; you’ve got more important things to do than daydream at the moment.

“Farewell Arthur. I shall see you soon my friend”, Rith called to Arthur as he began to make his way down the side of the mountain.

“Farewell Rith”, came the reply from Arthur.

Arthur was out of sight in a moment and Rith went back into his home and shut the door. Rith went over to his woodpile and shoved a few logs into his woodstove. He made tea accordingly and pondered more on the subject of the cart entrance. He fought with his conscious and won the argument. Rith decided he would make that entrance within the next month or two so hauling larger quantities of metal back and forth was not as troublesome.

Carrying a cup of his tea, Rith went into his smithy and looked at the strips of delyn wire lying across one of the work benches. He took a sip of his drink and grabbed 4 of the 6 foot strips of wire and went back out and laid them across his oak table. He sat on his bed for a moment and finished his tea. Rith went back into his working area and grabbed a few tools. Of those was a wire cutter, a specially rigged block of wood which had a slot to slide his cutters in after determining a preadjusted length of wire to be cut which in turn sped up the process of cutting wire immensely, and another tool that looked like wire cutters but with a different end. The other tool was the one which Rith used to bend the wire, on one end of the scissor-like things was a small rounded piece of metal that had a hole to fit an end of a wire. The other side had a matching rounded curve that was engraved so a wire could form around the other piece then into the slot to have even rings. This was one of Roth’s personal inventions for easily bending mail wires. Rith also grabbed 2 large clay bowls that were to be used for placing the cut wire and then the rings into so he wouldn’t lose them.

Knowing it would probably take until the end of the day just to cut all of the pieces of wire needed, another 2 just for bending all of the rings, then 5 or so more days of tedious work of linking the rings together. Also, he had to do those bracers. Being very unfamiliar with mithril, Rith would probably need 2 additional days for learning how to heat the metal and also how to shape it. This would keep from severe boredom and keep things changing a bit. Rith decided to do a little bit of each step at a time and to do the bracers half way through the mail to keep things from getting boring.

Today, Rith cut all the wire he possibly could. Only taking a short lunch break mid afternoon with still some of his stew, he finished cutting late into the evening. Getting one of the less boring parts of the job out of the way tomorrow would be a bit more fun as he may even get a chance to begin linking a few bits of the wires together.

[Rith]

Rith awoke and soon felt the strain and soreness in his wrists from all the cutting from yesterday. He didn’t bother much of moving from his bed except for to relieve himself of a few natural pressures. Oddly enough he skipped tea this morning and instead just had a few straight swigs from a whiskey bottle. The whiskey was no where near as strong as what he was used to as it was of poor grade and it tasted rather horrendous, but it did what it was intended to do and eased his aches.

Rith sat on the edge of his bed and grabbed a few handfuls of the wires and dropped them across the oak table. He grabbed his little invention and began placing one end of the wire into the clamp and squeezing it shut to form the small rings, spending most of the day doing this getting through roughly half of the bowl of straight wires. Hardly moving from his bed the entire day except to eat and stretch his legs, night seemed as it would never come, but eventually, it did.

Lying from his bed, Rith grabbed the second bowl filled with the rings and began slowly piecing them together. He dragged the oak table directly against his bunk and put the bowl of rings at a comfortable reaching point, so his arm could easily move from chest to bowl. Making chainmail was like a puzzle, except without any sort of reference, you had hundreds of identical little pieces and you had to interlock them together to make a shirt of armor to fit a customer that’s given you no measurements. It was trial and error, linking and unlinking but there was an art to it and Rith rather enjoyed the making of chainmail seemingly as he loved puzzles and anything to challenge his mind.

After about an hour of linking, a shirt began to form. Though, it looked more of a piece of metal cloth that was taking shape, the mail already consisted of about one hundred links. It was no where near being finished, and this was only one partial side of the future masterpiece, he still had to construct the back, shoulders, sides and arms. It wasn’t long before Rith fell asleep with the shirt laid across his chest. He didn’t get much further than another twenty links or so when he did drop into a sleep.

[Rith]

The next morning Rith awoke to his usual routine. During late evening he finished the front side of the mail and decided to turn in early that night.

Excited for the new day, Rith awoke and decided he’d try and work on the bracers today. It’d be all about the experimentation of heating the new metal, and shaping it. Bracers weren’t that hard of a thing to forge considering they were only slightly curved pieces of metal to fit the lower part of the arms extending up the lower three quarters of the arm. But, again he had yet to ever work this metal and hoped he was equipped to work the metal to how it need be.

After about two hours of piddling around his home, Rith had his furnace blazing hot. He only hoped that the mithril would heat accordingly and shape as planned, but the only way to tell was to experiment. Studying the sheet of mithril, Rith guessed he had enough for 3 bracers. After marking out the area for the 3 sections that could possibly fit each bracer he presumed to cut the mithril, but it was of no use. Rith managed to break one of his best pairs of metal cutters; the mithril was just too strong. He decided he’d try and heat the metal first and cut it afterwards, which now seemed logical considering he didn’t think of that the first time.

It took a near 3 hours, a few more pairs of metal cutters and a lot of frustration to finally get the mithril sheet sectioned. The next process was for actually trying to make the first bracer. After sitting the metal in his furnace for around two hours, the white metal had a strange bluish tint to it, which he figured was hot (assuming most metals glow orangish/red). The first strip of mithril he lay across his anvil and presumed to begin the bending, but it was of no use. His hammer had met its match and without some sort of device, or more heating, was going to be impossible to shape this stuff. He put the sheet back into the furnace and tried thinking of what he could use to bend the metal next.

Rith decided he’d use a log that had a cancerous growth that seemed to be just about the same size as Arthur’s arm to use as a template and bend the metal around that. Laying the log on the table and clamping it down, surely he could put the metal atop it and with a sledge hammer mould it that way. It was only a matter of seconds from the time Rith had laid the metal upon the log until it caught fire.

“MOTHER OF GOD!” Rith was yelling at the speed, intensity the mithril plate had lit the logs.

The plate didn’t stay atop the log but fell upon the table while the log burned. Rith ran for a pot and quickly filled it with water and splashed the log fire out. You’re a fucking idiot Rith, I swear. Fire and wood don’t mix, how stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid can you be? Rith moved to where he kept his store of coal and presumed to use some of the limited supply he had in the furnace in hopes to increase the temperature of making the mithril more malleable. He put the mithril plate back into the furnace for the third time now and again, went back to thinking of how in the hell he was going to bend this stuff. If the coals couldn’t get the furnace hot enough, he didn’t know what he was going to do. Break it to Arthur that he couldn’t fulfill the complete request and hopefully get some sort of pay out of this? If not, there probably wouldn’t be much to pocket considering if he didn’t keep the metal hot it would probably deform and lose strength, essentially making it worthless and also seeing that the price of mithril, well speaks for itself.

What to do, what to do. A log soaked in the rain bucket! Ah… no it’d only be a matter of minutes before it’d catch, not to mention all the damned smoke it’d make. What’s out there I could use? It was now approaching mid afternoon and Rith still hadn’t figured out what to do besides keep feeding the furnace wood and bits of coal to keep the metal hot.

“I’ve got it”, Rith had shouted. He remembered down at the pasture there were a few small rocks and the ones nearest the river bed, and ones inside the riverbed tended to be smooth. If only he could find a suitable rock or two that would fit the lower portion of the arm in diameter and shape he could use that to mould the bracers.

Rith snatched up his back satchel and bolted towards the river and within minutes was scavenging the bed for suitable rocks. Every possible rock he found he loaded into the pack. Nearly half an hour of scavenging resulted in about twenty suitable stones and a rather heavy back pack.

Back in his home Rith immediately kindled the fire a bit more and presumed to dump the rocks onto his metal workbench. He sorted through the stones and realized in his frantic most of them weren’t even suitable for even a child’s arm, or they would hardly fit an ogre. Despite that though, he did manage a few good stones to work with. Two in particular, he’d be able to use. One seemed better for Arthur’s upper arm, and one for his wrist. Maybe I could shape the upper arm with the larger stone, and then later shape the lower part. That’s if I can actually get the damned stuff to bend, blah.

[Rith]

Rith needed to make a type of contraption to hold the metal stones and to also hold the sheets of mithril so he could bend the material into shape. After about an hour or so of piddling around he finished the small odd looking thing. It was now up to the gods if he was going to finally be able to bend the metal, and he sure prayed. Heading towards his work bench, Rith placed the contraption onto one of his metal workbenchs and grabbed one of the larger sized hammers. It weighed around six pounds and thought it would hopefully be enough to do the job. Afterall, this was the largest handheld hammer he had.

Rith removed the metal from the furnace and proceeded to put the sheet into his device on top of the workbench and he proceeded to hopefully begin working the metal.

CLANG

The hammer bounced off the sheet of mithril like a major leaguer hitting a tennis ball with a baseball bat. Rith’s hammer flew out of his hand and landed on the floor many feet behind him. Shit! I’ll be damned if I do that again. Despite the unexpected happening, there was some good coming from this as he noticed the metal had a very slight bend. It wasn’t much, but a quarter of an inch ment that just awhile more of heating or somehow figuring out how to get more power behind his swing without the hammer flying across the room. What he really needed though, was a combination of both.

Rith slid the deformed piece of metal back in the furnace and shoveled a bit more coal and a large number of logs into the raging fire. His six pound hammer was the largest he had of the single handed hammers he could use, but maybe somehow to use his larger sledges. Pondering on the subject, he went back into his living area and grabbed a step stool and ran back into the smithy and placed it on the work table.

After grabbing his lightest sledge which weighed about twelve pounds, he laid it on top of the table and presumed to climb up after it. Rith adjusted the stool in front of the device where the metal sheets were to be bent. Next, he picked up the sledge hammer, lifted it over his head and swung directly down and between his legs as if he were actually hammering down the metal.

An hour or two had later passed; Rith pulled the already bent piece of metal from the furnace and again placed it into the device that would hold it. Climbing atop the table, Rith assumed his position above the metal on his stool and brought the hammer into swinging position. As hard as he could, Rith dropped the hammer from above and it slammed against the mithril. A few sparks flew and the metal began to finally give way under the force driven into it. The rock held its own and didn't break, thankfuly.

More pounding and heating, Rith finished the shaping of the bracers late into the night. Now it was a task to merely work out the last few kinks in the mithril into a smooth, rounded shape that mimicked the arm. The metal had surprisingly few faults as the stones acted a well rounded guide for the bracers. I sure as hell hope I won’t always have to do this with mithril, what a damned pain it'll sure be.

Approaching the wee hours of the morning now, Rith did all he possibly could in smoothing out the metal. But, after all of the heating and cooling over the past day or more, the metal had lost much of its strength.

[Rith]

There was really only one solution to give the mithril back some of it's strength, but it would make the metal much more brittle and subject to tearing if deformed. Rith knew if he let the metal cool to room temperature, it would be a slow process but the metal would be much more malliable and more easily deformed when struck by a large object with a lot of force.

Instead of taking the risk, Rith dropped the raging hot bracers into their own buckets of cool water. The rapid change in temperature quickly freezes the particles in the metal together which and adds a substantial amount of strength to the metal by the bonding. Though, the metal is much more dense than it would normally be, if they bracers are ever reheated and reshaped, tears will result and render it useless. Also, if a large heavy object strikes the metal and bends it, tears will result causing the metal rapidly lose strength and be near worthless. Rith doubted Arthur would ever be in such a a predicament where he would be subject to that danger, but you would never know.

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another staff member and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.