The wind howled through the Wolfswood, carrying the bite of coming snow.
Old Cullen wrapped his thin cloak tighter around his shoulders. His boots crunched against the frozen earth as he led five reluctant guards up the slope of Black Ridge.
The men were terrified.
In the North, superstition was as common as snow. They believed the Old Gods watched from the weirwood trees. They believed the White Walkers slept beneath the ice. And they believed that Black Ridge was a place of bad luck because nothing grew here. The rocks were black, the smell was foul, and the ground felt wrong.
"Keep moving," Cullen ordered, though his own voice wavered. "The Lord commanded it."
"It is madness," one of the guards muttered, shivering. His name was Jory, a young man whose spear tip was rusted brown. "Digging up cursed rocks? While we starve? The young Lord has lost his mind to the fever."
"Silence," Cullen snapped. "Unless you want to explain to Lord Andar why you returned with an empty cart."
They reached the outcrop.
The ground here was indeed ugly. Jagged black stones poked out of the snow like broken teeth. The air smelled faintly of sulfur, a scent the smallfolk associated with demons.
"Dig," Cullen pointed to the exposed vein.
The guards exchanged glances. Reluctantly, they raised their pickaxes and struck the earth.
Clang.
The black rock shattered easily. It was brittle, shiny, and dirty.
Cullen picked up a piece. It left a greasy black smear on his fingers. He frowned. How could this useless stone save them? It was not iron. It was not gold. It was just... dirt that had hardened.
But he remembered the look in Andar's eyes. It was a look that terrified him more than the winter itself.
"Fill the carts," Cullen said quietly. "If we are to die, let us at least die obeying orders."
Meanwhile, inside the courtyard of Deepwood Keep.
Andar was busy. He was not sitting on his high seat. He was standing in the mud, holding a stick, drawing complex diagrams in the half frozen dirt.
"My Lord?"
Mott the blacksmith stood nearby, swaying slightly from the morning wine. He squinted at the drawings. "Is that... a chimney?"
"It is a blast furnace, Mott," Andar said without looking up. "Or at least, a primitive version of one."
He pointed to the circle he had drawn.
"We need to build a tower here. Ten feet high. We will use the grey clay from the riverbank mixed with straw and sand. It needs to withstand heat. High heat. Heat that would melt your copper pot in seconds."
Mott laughed nervously. "My Lord, wood fires do not get that hot. Even with bellows, the heat escapes."
"That is why we are not using wood," Andar stood up and dusted off his hands. "And that is why we are enclosing the heat."
He looked at the confused blacksmith.
"Mott, tell me. How do you make steel?"
"Steel?" Mott scratched his beard. "You take iron, you heat it, you hammer it, you fold it. You do it for days. It is slow work, My Lord. Expensive work."
"Wrong," Andar said. "Steel is just iron with the right amount of carbon. You are doing it by feel. You are guessing. I am going to show you how to do it with chemistry."
Just then, the heavy wooden gates of the castle creaked open.
Cullen and the guards returned. The two wooden carts were piled high with the black stones. The wheels groaned under the weight.
The villagers who were huddled in the courtyard backed away, whispering. They stared at the black rocks as if they were plague corpses.
"He brought the cursed stones," a woman whispered. "We are doomed. The Old Gods will be angry."
Andar ignored them. He walked straight to the carts. He picked up a chunk of coal. It was low grade bituminous coal, but for this era? It was black gold.
"Dump it here," Andar ordered. "Break it into pieces the size of a fist. Do not crush it to dust. We need air to flow through it."
He turned to the shivering guards.
"You five. Put down your spears. Today you are not soldiers. You are builders. Help Mott mix the clay."
"My Lord..." Jory stepped forward, his face pale. "We are swordsmen of House Stark. We do not dig in the mud."
Andar stopped.
The courtyard went silent. The wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls.
Andar walked up to Jory. He was shorter than the guard, but he stood with a strange, terrifying stillness.
"Swordsmen?" Andar asked softly.
He reached out and grabbed the spear from Jory's hand. He inspected the tip. It was dull, pitted with rust, and bent slightly to the left.
Crack.
Andar snapped the spear shaft over his knee with a sudden, violent motion.
He threw the broken pieces into the mud at Jory's feet.
"This is not a weapon," Andar said, his voice carrying across the yard. "This is a stick. You are not swordsmen. You are victims waiting to be slaughtered by the first Wildling raiding party that climbs the Wall."
He stared into Jory's eyes.
"You want to be a warrior? Then build me the furnace. When I am done, you will hold a weapon that can cut through plate armor like parchment. But until then, you dig."
Jory swallowed hard. The defiance drained out of him. He looked at the broken spear, then at the black coal.
"Yes, My Lord," he whispered.
"Good," Andar turned back to the blacksmith. "Mott. Sober up. We have work to do."
Three days passed.
The entire castle was transformed into a construction site.
Under Andar's constant supervision, a strange structure had risen in the center of the courtyard.
It looked like a grotesque stone tower, about ten feet tall, plastered with grey mud that had dried and cracked in the cold wind. At the bottom, there were holes for air intake, connected to large leather bellows that Andar had stripped from the old smithy.
The villagers watched from a distance. They thought their Lord was building an altar to a dark god.
It was evening on the third day. The sun was setting, painting the snow in shades of blood orange.
"It is ready," Andar said.
He stood before the furnace. His hands were blistered. His face was smeared with soot. He had not slept in forty hours.
[Quest Update: Construction Complete]
[Efficiency: 64% (Primitive)]
[Status: Ready for Ignition]
"Load it," Andar commanded.
Mott and Cullen nervously began to shovel layers into the top of the tower.
One layer of charcoal.
One layer of iron ore (scavenged from old broken tools and raw rocks).
One layer of the "cursed black stone."
"Light it."
Mott held a torch to the bottom opening. The kindling inside caught fire.
"Pump the bellows!" Andar shouted. "Harder! Do not stop!"
Four strong men grabbed the handles of the massive bellows. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Air was forced into the belly of the beast.
At first, there was only smoke. Thick, black, choking smoke poured out of the top of the tower. The villagers coughed and covered their faces.
"It is a disaster," Cullen moaned. "We are just making smoke."
"Keep pumping!" Andar roared.
The temperature inside was rising. The coal was catching.
Suddenly, the sound changed.
The dull crackle of wood turned into a low, deep roar. It sounded like a dragon breathing inside the stone tower.
ROAR.
A jet of blue and orange flame shot out of the top of the furnace, lighting up the darkening sky.
The heat hit them like a physical blow. The snow on the ground around the furnace instantly turned to water, then to steam.
Mott stepped back, shielding his eyes. "By the Seven... the stone is burning! The black stone is burning!"
"It is not just burning," Andar said, his eyes reflecting the terrifying blaze. "It is melting."
He walked to the bottom of the furnace, ignoring the searing heat that singed his eyebrows. He picked up a long iron rod and jammed it into the tap hole at the base.
He twisted it, then pulled it out.
A stream of liquid flowed out.
It was not water. It was not mud.
It was bright, blindingly white liquid fire. Molten iron, purified and hotter than anything these Northerners had ever seen, flowed into the sand molds Andar had prepared.
The courtyard was silent. No one spoke. No one breathed.
They stared at the liquid fire, their faces illuminated by the glow of the industrial age.
Andar watched the metal cool, turning from white to red to grey.
[Quest Complete: The First Flame]
[Reward: Blueprint - Flintlock Musket (Basic)]
Andar smiled.
"Cullen," he said without turning around.
The old steward was on his knees, staring at the miracle. "Yes... Yes, My Lord?"
"Tell the men to eat a full meal tonight," Andar said softly. "Tomorrow, we start mass production."
.....
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
25 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
50 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
75 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!