Leaving the jerkin open in the middle, revealing my linen shirt below, I infused my muscles and bones with mana, dashing through the streets, feeling the loose bits of clothing flap violently in the wind. Within a few moments, and nearly knocking down a person or two, I'd made it to Maikell's shop.
It was one of the only stone-built locations in the entirety of Caegwen. This was not without reason, however, as only the blacksmith shops were needed to be built by stone, mortar, and other such conventional means to prevent them from being set ablaze should an accident occur.
The smell of fresh charcoal placed on the open flames of the forge being fed from a perpendicular angle by the box bellows filled the shop with a light amount of smoke and the sounds of a roaring, hungry flame. The bright orange fire encased a piece of unknown metal, heating it to a near yellow. Pulling the long piece out of the fire, the blacksmith used a dog-face hammer to strike and mold the metal to his will, accomplishing what would've taken a human smith two or three heats to do in just a few hits.
I winced at the high-pitched ringing that resonated from the anvil, but had a hard time tearing my eyes away from the added mana manipulation he was using to help shape the metal. It was curious, almost used more as a guideline than actually changing the metal itself, like a handrail on an elongated stairwell.
After a few moments, the metal cooled to a cherry red, then the dull gray color that normal metal would be in this state. Eyeing down his work, he checked for any crookedness or misshapen bits that might need to be fixed, though he quickly came to a halt when he noticed me standing in the doorway to his shop.
"Ah, Thoma! Welcome, welcome. Give me just a moment, I've got to make sure I don't put this somewhere it doesn't belong," the black-haired elf said, glancing around his workplace to find a spot to place the still-hot metal. His voice was warm, but I could tell there was an age that was kept well hidden by his maturation point.
If I had to guess, it was clear he was well into his thousands, at least.
"Why not just put it back into the fire? I won't be here long," I asked nonchalantly. He raised an eyebrow with a look of either disbelief or disgust in his green eyes, I couldn't quite tell which, and sighed.
"Do you have any idea what that would do to the metal? All of its toughness would be wrought out by the fire, and there would be nothing I could do. Hells, if I were to let it sit in there too long, you might as well try attacking someone with a stick of butter at that point, since you might end up doing more damage that way," he said dismissively, finally setting the metal down on top of a steel support base.
"So, how can I help you? Did your mother send you here?" he asked, pulling off the single glove he wore. The skin beneath the glove was clean and pale, while the rest of him looked like he had rolled around in a pile of ash and soot. "N-no. Was she supposed to?" I asked, a little confused. "Shit. Well, there goes that surprise," he said, scratching the back of his head. "He hasn't seen it yet, has he?" my mother's voice came from behind me.
Needless to say, I was confused as she walked past me and stood next to Maikell.
"What do you mean? I was just here to see if I could do something about my jerkin not fitting me properly anymore," I said, pointing to the undone buttonhooks of my jerkin. My mother's eyes widened as a smile grew across her face. "See? I told you he was growing," my mother said, wrapping an arm around Maikell's shoulder. "Argh, off with you, you brute," he grunted, shoving her arm off his shoulder.
"Brute? I'm just trying to be nice!" my mother said in jest. "Yeah, well, your version of nice hurts more than you think it does. Anyway, are you giving him what I made for him or not? I already got interrupted by the boy and I promised Vesryn I'd finish it by tomorrow," he asked, gesturing to me.
"Yes. We're about to head out on an investigation, so I'd rather he get it sooner than later," she said, patting his shoulder heavy handedly. He didn't budge, but I could see the red hand mark my mother left on his skin. "Alright then, give me a second here," he said, turning to grab a leather parcel wrapped in a cross-tied string. "Here you are," he said, giving me as warm a smile as he could muster. "It's not much, but your mom has truly helped us all out here, so I felt like I owed her a favor," he said, putting his hands on his hips.
"Th-thank you. I don't know what to say," I stammered, grabbing the parcel with both hands. It was surprisingly light for its size, but I laid it out on a nearby table that only had a few tools on it. Untying and unfolding the parcel, I could hardly believe my eyes with what was beneath it. "Go on, then. Try it on," he said, his tone growing a little warmer after seeing my reaction. "R-right now?" I asked, looking around for a changing area. "Ah, one moment," he said, reaching for a lever that lowered a curtain hung off of a metallic ring.
"There, you can change inside of that. Most people do, especially if I have to make any adjustments for their armor," he said with a shrug. The armor was intuitive enough to put on, and light enough to where I could lift it over my head with absolutely no issues whatsoever.
The armor was primarily made of griffin leather dyed a dark green and silver like my mother's armor. There were a few pieces of that same, unidentifiable metal in the chest and shoulder pauldrons. The bracers, sabatons, greaves, cuisses, and spaulders fit incredibly snugly, as if they were molded specifically to my body. Each piece of armor held intricate linework that swirled and flowed like the vines of Myrdin across them.
The gorget was adorned with the symbol of houses Phrys and Fayren, with them being located on the left and right, respectively. The Phrys family emblem of a lynx caressed by a crescent moon beneath a chevron, supported by two green dragons, and backed by a dark green shield with the words Power for Progress, Progress for Peace written on an unfurled scroll that bent upwards from the bottom.
It was more elaborate than ours, which was a diving falcon over twin, crossed blades, and backed by a black shield. The emblem was wreathed in a laurel with the words They All Will Fall written in a similarly unfurled scroll draped atop the shield. "I never thought we even had a family crest," I said quietly to myself, looking down in disbelief as I stepped out of the changing room.
As soon as I did, my mother's face lit up in a mixture of both pride and happiness, with her eyes beginning to well up with tears. "Look at you all grown up," she said, wiping away a tear as she chuckled. "Thanks mom. Maikell, I couldn't thank you enough for this absolute masterpiece," I said, giving the elf a warm smile and a bow. "Bah, that's not all I made you," he said, surprising us both. "What? What do you mean? I only asked you for the armor," my mother asked, shocked to her core.
"Yeah, but what good is such good looking armor if he doesn't have a sword to match it?" Maikell asked wryly, pulling out a sheathed longsword from beneath the table between us. The sheath held similar patterns to my armor, with both emblems stitched into it and stacked on top of one another. The guard held a gentle, upward curve, with an eight-sided pommel at its base. The wire-wrapped hilt held a braided steel divider midway through its length, and was gently flattened to better my grip around it.
"It's fucking beautiful," I said, not bothering to try and keep my language polite as I picked it up. The balance of the satin-finished blade was perfect in every single way. No matter how I held it, it seemed to flow far better than any blade I'd ever wielded before. "I cannot thank you enough," I said, acknowledging the amount of work that must have gone into making such pieces.
"Nah, I owed your mom more than just a favor. She saved mine and my wife's lives once. No amount of work I could ever do would be enough, even if she says no thanks are needed," Maikell said, his tone both reminiscent and humbled. My mother smiled at him warmly, and gave him a hug regardless of how dirty he was. "Thank you," she said, her voice muffled slightly. He was taken aback, as most elves would be in this situation, but patted her lightly on the back after a moment's consideration.
"Well, you'd best be off. Got a long road ahead of you on the way to Soule. Wouldn't want to be late for that, would you?" Maikell asked after clearing his throat, giving us both knowing nods. I bowed before showing myself out of the workshop, and rolled my shoulders once or twice, hardly feeling the armor at all. "What did I do to deserve this?" I asked my mother, who was making sure all the pieces worked together without hindrance.