Gazing at the pile of orc bodies engulfed in fire, Magnus took a deep look at everyone present. Whether dwarf or human, they all seemed to be enjoying this—especially the humans, who had been through this ordeal before
'Well, this should be enough to keep em placated for a while and to follow my orders. I doubt they would've cast off their mental shackles without something like this, so now I have become their pillar of sorts.'
A faint smirk was on his face.
'It ain't bad, being relied on. Now then!'
"Yo, Thorgim."
"Ah? Yes?" the still dazed dwarf replied.
"How about teaching me to forge?"
"My liege..." the dwarf replied, sighing, "I don't mean to be disrespectful but everyone here is starving right now. Can we first go eat before anything?"
"Oh... Yeah, I don't get hungry easily so I forget people get hungry, all of you can go eat." Magnus replied, before realising something, "Also, why are you calling me liege?"
"Well, you'd call the lord you serve my liege in human kingdoms, no? If you want, I can also refer to you as Mountain Lord." Thorgim scratched his head.
"... That's the dwarven one?" Magnus stroked his non-existent beard.
"Aye, a Mountain Lord rules over a whole mountain."
"Why not just my Lord?" the one armed swordsman asked.
Both of them turned to look at Magnus, who still seemed undecided. An invisible tension hung in the air.
"Well.... I like both, so refer to me whichever way you want. And before you ask..." he sighed, "No, I won't play favourites with either side, I'll try to be kind to all of my people, regardless of species. Got it?"
A collective of sighs escaped everyone else, faintly smiling.
Thorgim took the lead, bending his knee and shouting "My lord."
Volund was second, slightly behind. The rest followed soon after, prompting Magnus to shake his head with a smile.
"All of you get up, and go eat."
As if on cue, Thorgim's stomach rumbled. With a faint cough, the dwarf got up and ran to the newly set up canteen.
Soon, Magnus was left alone in the courtyard, the pile of orc bodies having only faint embers flickering.
'Well... I guess I'll try my hand at forging on my own? Or should I go beat up a few cave fish...'
His thoughts trailed off, trying to sort what other issues there might be.
'Medicine might be a problem. If people start falling sick, I'll need to find a doctor in this hellhole.'
He glanced at the map. The place where he got teleported to was around 60 kilometres away, while the orc village where he freed the slaves was roughly 35. No enemies were in his current detection range, either.
'Maybe the dwarves have a spare map that survived the battle leftover, would make it easy to find other places to raid.'
[25 Days, 39/1000 subordinates ]
[Suitable location for base. ]
'Hmm... Meh, I'll worry about this tomorrow. And since I feel mentally exhausted from the fighting, I'll avoid fishing and go forging!'
Shortly after, Magnus arrived at the dwarven forge.
"Hartfire Forge, was it? It's impressive no matter how I look at it." the memories he received as a reward began to surface, causing him to look for—
"A crucible?" Magnus gazed at the indents in the stony ground, with thin metal handles on the sides. Grabbing a slightly oversized pair of tongs, he managed to carefully lift up the crucible from the ground.
Its size was roughly as wide as his forearm, and it's length was up to his waist. A metal of sorts was encasing it's top part, seemingly made to be closed somehow.
On the side, he spotted metal lids that fit the crucible perfectly.
"I see, they dunk the crucible with the metals inside in the lava while it's covered. But how does the lava not stick to it?"
Without hesitation, he threw some iron ore into the crucible, before firmly closing it and placing it in the lava.
Wiping his sweat, he noticed two things.
"So the lava basin isn't deep at all, it's roughly only up to my knees. And the lava flows, so new hot lava will replace the old lava. Very interesting, I should ask them how they made these things, hehe."
He imagined himself with hundreds of these forgets producing equipment endlessly, a grand army taking shape before him.
After a few minutes, as he removed the crucible from the lava he saw it simply slide off.
"There's something odd about the crucible. Now then—"
He began pouring the molten iron into a prepared mold, a faint smoke rising up. The shape of a sword's blade began to take shape, glowing red.
Placing it on the anvil using a pair of tongs, he picked up the largest and sturdiest looking hammer he could find.
"Huuup!"
BANG!
Lifting the hammer, the sword shape had been turned into a sheet.
"..."
Crumpling the sheet, he tossed it once more into the crucible, and again had another sword shape in front of him.
Taking a much smaller hammer this time, he brought it down again.
CLANG!
Raining blow after blow on the poor metal, endless noises rang out from the forge. It wasn't until half an hour later when he thought he was finished that he stopped hammering.
After cooling off the sword using a nearby water basin, he looked at the blade. Though uneven, with many dents and cracks covering the blade, he nodded in satisfaction.
'Not bad for a first attempt.'
"Lad..."
Turning around, he saw Volund and Thorgim staring at the sword in his hands, faint tears visible in their eyes.
"That's not how you treat a blade when forging..." Thorgim followed up, rubbing his eyes, "What a tragedy, what a tragedy..."
"Then teach me you two idiots!"
"First, you need to Hammer away the impurities from the metal itself, but we'll skip that for now, use the iron over there." Thorgim pointed at an iron ingot to the side of the forge.
Once more, it was molten down and cast into the rough shape of a sword.
"And the hammers you're using are for magical metals, a simple steel hammer like this one suffices." Volund handed him a hammer, explaining. Far smaller than either of the two hammers, it's head was only the size of a fist.
Cling!
Instinctively, Magnus knew the sound was different than before. As he was about to keep hammering, Volund interrupted him.
"First, hammer the impurities in the metal out. Although most were removed, you should still do it if you want a proper blade."
"And only then can you begin hammering it into a shape you desire!" Thorgim followed.
The Hammer turned into a blur, repeatedly striking the metal. Unlike before, the square shape of the blade was maintained as he kept rotating it, removing impurities from the metal.
After a few minutes, both the dwarves began to inspect his weapon, giving a nod of approval.
His hammer began striking on the edges now, turning the once broad edge of the metal smaller and smaller. Within minutes, it disappeared, revealing a sharp edge.
And under the surprised eyes of the two dwarves, the blade was revealed once it had cooled.
A cold metallic sheen, reflecting both of their surprised faces. The once crude metal had been forged into a sword that radiated an unmistakable killing intent.
"So how is it?" Magnus asked, wiping his sweat with his sleeve.
"Amazing! You really are gifted at forging!"
"You're better than some human blacksmiths, and you're a complete newbie!"
Checking his timer, he saw he had spent an hour to forge this sword.
'Not bad, now —'
"So can you now teach me how to forge weapons like dwarves do?"
"Deal, but they must not be passed down!" both replied in unison.
"Alright, I accept your conditions so let's meet up here every day from now after nightfall. I look forward to learning from you two!"
After some more banter with the two dwarves, he went to sleep, knowing tomorrow he'd have to choose between gathering supplies or thinning out the local orc population.