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Cracks had spread throughout the ground centered around the large anvil before him, formed by the immense force of the strikes he’d been raining down on the nearly flattened piece of scale that had once been a pile before him.

Ripples passed through the stone as it continued to shift between every strike. Red smoke continued to pour into the ground, pulling supports from within it to continue aiding Arwin wield the enormous hammer.

It had been no more than five minutes since Arwin had started smithing. It felt like it was hours. For once, it wasn’t his energy that had gone first. Arwin still had magical reserves abound, but his physical strength had been sapped harder than it had ever been before.

Even with [Scourge], the hammer was heavy. Impossibly heavy. The weight it carried was far more than the metal making it up should have been able to manage.

Every single muscle in his body ached. Every movement felt like were trying to heave an entire house, but the Infernal Armory bore the hammer together with him. Power thrummed in the black lines connecting both him and Verdant Inferno to the teeming black mass in the wall, pulsating to the beat of the heart.

Arwin finally let the hammer lower. The metal covering it sloughed away like rushing water, turning molten and pouring into the cracks in the ground before vanishing. He dismissed Verdant Inferno and reached down to inspect the results of his efforts.

The air around it was still hazy. He could smell the heat in the air and his lips were dry, the excess moisture in his body and the room alike all having been burned away. The pile of scales had been more than just flattened.

They’d been merged. There were still ripples in the flat piece where Arwin could make out the edges of the individual scale, but it was completely smooth to the touch. It was glassy, like sand struck by lightning.

The material was smooth and seamless to the touch. Once craggy scales had taken on a dark sheen. Flickers of molten orange burned deep within it, almost as if he’d hammered [Soul Flame] permanently into the scales.

Arwin tried to pick it up, but the plate wouldn’t budge. He blinked, then frowned. A divot formed in the anvil at the edge of the plate. He slipped his hand into it, heaving the plate vertical with a grunt.

“An impressive result,” the voice of the red smoke whispered. “The scales have melted together. Heat and force. An adequate utilization of our powers in conjunction.”

“So it is,” Arwin agreed. “But it’s too heavy. I need to make it smaller, and I don’t think I’ll be able to rip something this dense and strong apart, even with Scourge. You got a saw in there?”

There was a moment of hesitation. Steps moved away from Arwin through the crimson smoke before the voice responded again, this time from his other ear. “One sharp enough to cut this in a meaningful amount of time? No. I need better material. I cannot create what I do not possess. If you feed me the rest of the beast—”

“No,” Arwin said. “That’s Lillia’s. Don’t touch it. Can you just make me a strong metal spike?”

A metal spire rose up over the edge of the anvil and curved over, forming a flat end with a heavy spike protruding down from it directly above the center of the metal. Arwin lifted Verdant Blaze and reared back, swinging the hammer down with all his [Scourge] empowered might.

It slammed down on the flat piece of metal, slamming the spike down into the scale plate. The spike drove into it with a crack. Arwin swung the hammer three more times, sending the spike slightly deeper with every blow.

On the fourth, a crack split through the plate. It finally snapped on the next blow, splitting apart into two rough pieces, one considerably larger than the other. Arwin gathered the larger piece and moved it to the ground.

The stone split open and swallowed the piece whole before sealing back over as if nothing had happened. Arwin stared at the floor for a second before straightening back up and picking up the smaller plate.

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“I’m going to need more than my normal [Soul Flame] if I’m going to work with this,” Arwin said, but the smithy was already changing.

Red smoke poured into the cracks in the ground. The anvil sank beneath the cobblestone and a black metal tube arose in its place, about the width of Arwin’s chest. It came up to just below his neck before grinding to a halt.

There was an opening in the center of the tube just large enough for him to stick both of his hands through. A dull orange glow emanated from within it, steadily growing brighter. Heat rolled out from within the tube and into Arwin’s face, making him blink and squint.

A small spark of fire curled at the base of the hole. It intensified as a bed of [Soul Flame] crackled to life. It shifted from orange to blue to white, and the air around it turned hazy. Arwin smiled. He wreathed his arms in [Soul Flame] once more before placing the piece of scale plate within the flame.

Blemishes of oily color washed across the plate’s surface as it heated. The faint stench of burnt hair and coal mixed with the smell of sulfur hanging in the air. Flickers of fire danced out from within the tube and slipped by the protective [Soul Flame] covering Arwin.

It brushed across his skin, but failed to burn him. He wasn’t sure if that was because the [Soul Flame] was somehow an extension of his own powers or if the Infernal Armory had a way to control it. That did little to make the fire much more bearable. The heat was so intense that Arwin had to fight for every breath he drew in. His eyes hurt from even trying to look in the direction of the blindingly hot furnace.

Arwin averted his gaze down to the pieces of metal he’d left on the ground. A section of the stone rose up, bearing the metal up to him. He took the steel first and stilled his thoughts, stilling his mind so he could hear the metal’s desires.

Visions flickered through his mind of the metal’s past. It was nothing that he hadn’t seen before. That didn’t make it any less important. The more he understood his materials, the better he could forge them.

He was unsurprised to find that the metal bore desires to be a blade. A dagger, a sword, all were fine with it. None would do. Arwin did not seek to make a weapon, and this metal had never truly considered anything else — but its desires weren’t so strong that he was convinced they couldn’t be changed.

“You could be that,” Arwin murmured. “You’d make a good blade. I could do that. I could turn you into a weapon. One that rips and kills. One that takes. Or I could make you into something more. Something that is looked upon with awe and desire. Something that is remembered. Your choice.”

He envisioned the dream he had for the metal, pushing it back through their tenuous bond. The visions slowed. It would have been wrong to say the metal was considering Arwin’s offer. It didn’t have that level of intelligence. It didn’t truly consider. But, after a few moments, there was a new vision.

Arwin smiled.

He set the prepared metal down on the protruding stone tendril to swap it out for the bar of Mithril. But, when he extended his senses to try and read the Mithril’s desire, there was nothing.

He could feel something deep within the metal. It didn’t lack desire. He simply couldn’t detect it. Arwin’s brow furrowed and he tried to pry deeper, but nothing came. The Mithril was unreadable.

So be it. You’ll just have to work as is, then.

Arwin set the Mithril to the side and returned his attention to the scale plate that he still held within the furnace. He grit his teeth and squinted, giving the piece of scale plate a test squeeze with [Scourge] empowered fingers now that the flame had a little bit to work its way in. It gave. Not much, but enough.

He grabbed the steel from where it sat in wait and brought it into the furnace, letting it heat. Arwin set the scale plate to the side for a few moments to roll the steel out between his palms like a piece of dough. He then pressed it against the scale plate. Arwin pinched their ends, squeezing scale and metal together in the intense heat.

The Mithril came next. He rolled it out as well, surprised to find how easily the metal let him shape it. It was like working with putty. In just moments, he had it prepared. Arwin pressed it together with the other two components and started to braid them over each other.

With every movement, he poured magical energy from his body into the trio of metals and scale. He’d been expecting making something with Mithril to be a long, laborious process. A major test like this felt like it should have taken hours.

It didn’t. Within minutes, Arwin had wrapped the metal tightly and run it through his hands, removing any irregularities and smoothing out small bumps. A bracelet, far too small to fit his own wrist, rested hidden from even his own eyes within the flames of the forge.

Magic tingled like a raging river beneath Arwin’s fingers. The bracelet would be finished the moment he pulled his hand free of the flame.

“Remove it,” the voice whispered, eager steps pattering behind Arwin. “Reveal our first creation.”

Wallace watched from the side of the smithy, his bearded face once again unreadable and a hand gripping his hammer in a tight knuckled grip. He was waiting, just as Arwin and the voice were.

I’m not so sure I want to finish without double checking my work or something. I didn’t feel the Mithril doing anything fancy. It’s just a bracelet. A nice one, I hope, but a bracelet. But if I don’t wrap this up, Lillia could show back up before I’m done. There’s no way nobody heard all the sound I was making in here, so it’s just a matter of time.

Arwin’s jaw set. There was only one thing left to do.

He pulled the bracelet free, and the Mesh bloomed forth, carving words into the air in letters as red as blood.

The Band Three [Cursed]