Chapter 28: The Forge of Cooperation
The days that followed the first Council meeting saw a new, purposeful traffic between Vance Haven and the Stonetusk lands. It was no longer just wary hunting parties or tense trading delegations. Now, it was Kael and a few other skilled wood-shapers traveling to the Graxian forges, carrying baskets of the heavy, silver-veined Sky-Fall ore. In return, Graxian apprentices, under Draga's stern command, began arriving at Vance Haven's gates, not with weapons, but with tools—heavy sledges and thick, stone-anchored tongs—to help establish a basic smithy near the river.
The air in the Stonetusk forge was a blistering contrast to the humid jungle. Alistair stood with Thora and Borak, watching Draga work. The massive female Graxian was a artist of fire and metal. She had built a new, smaller furnace specifically for the project, its design a hybrid of Graxian brute-force and the subtle adjustments suggested by Kael's wood-shaping, creating a more focused, intense heat.
The first attempt had failed spectacularly. The blackstone, when fused with the Sky-Fall ore under normal forging temperatures, had simply shattered, the two materials refusing to bond. The failure had hung in the soot-choked air like a funeral shroud.
But Draga was not one to surrender. "The stone resists the fire," she had grunted, staring at the fragments. "It is of the deep, quiet earth. Our fires are of the angry, shallow stone. They are not in harmony."
It was Kael who offered the solution. "The fire is wrong," he said, his voice quiet but firm amidst the hulking Graxians. "It is all rage, no spirit." He pointed to the bellows, the very ones Alistair had traded. "The wind we give it is just air. It needs to be... more."
Alistair understood. "It needs to be of this world." He looked at Draga. "We need to temper it. Not with water, but with energy. With the planet's own life."
It was a risk. Introducing the clean, ordered energy of the ley-lines into the chaotic, high-energy environment of a forge was uncharted territory. They could just as easily create an explosion as a breakthrough.
But they had no other path.
The next attempt began like the first. Draga heated a crucible containing chunks of blackstone and the crushed Sky-Fall ore. The air shimmered with heat. When the metals glowed a furious orange-white, she gave a sharp nod.
"Now, Earth-Shaker!"
Alistair stepped forward, ignoring the searing heat on his face. He placed his hands not on the crucible, but on the stone anvil it rested upon. He reached down, deep into the ley-lines flowing beneath the Graxian settlement. He found a clean, steady stream of power and pulled a single, focused thread of it upward, directing it into the molten metal mix.
A visible wave of green-gold energy, like the ghost of a forest, flowed up through the anvil and into the crucible. The orange-white glow of the metal flared, then softened, settling into a steady, vibrant silver-blue. The two distinct materials within swirled and merged, becoming one homogeneous, glowing liquid.
A collective gasp went up from the watching Graxians. It was magic, but not the destructive kind they feared. This was a magic of creation.
With practiced, reverent speed, Draga poured the molten alloy into a stone mold shaped like a massive war-hammer's head. As it cooled, it didn't just turn dark grey. It retained a faint, internal luminescence, a captured echo of the planetary energy used to birth it.
When it was cool enough to handle, Draga lifted the hammer head with her tongs. It was a thing of brutal beauty. It was black shot through with silver veins that pulsed with a soft, blue-silver light. She fitted it to a haft of the densest spiralwood, reinforced with bands of Scythe-Maw chitin.
She hefted the completed weapon. It was immensely heavy, but she held it with ease. She looked at Alistair, her usual grimness replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated triumph.
"The first song of Stone and Root is forged," she announced, her voice ringing through the forge.
They tested it not on an anvil, but on a leftover shard of the corrupted Scythe-Maw chitin. Draga swung the hammer in a short, powerful arc.
The impact did not sound like metal on crystal. It was a deep, resonant *THOOM*, like a great bell tolling underground. The corrupted shard didn't just crack; it disintegrated, exploding into a cloud of inert, grey dust. The faint blue glow within it was snuffed out instantly.
Silence descended, broken only by the crackle of the forge.
It worked. They had created a weapon