"I was going to try everything I could to bring the boy along, but the damn . . . bird . . . prevented me from going down many of the avenues I usually use to convince the villagers to leave."
Mr. Li huffed a sigh of frustration as he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his forefinger and thumb.
"If that . . . bird . . . were not so damn powerful! . . ."
Before he could continue, Matt interrupted the old man.
"Mr.Li! Please be careful with your words! . . ."
The young caravan guard looked around with paranoia before continuing with his warning, whispering to Mr. Li.
"he might hear you . . ."
Mr. Li waved him off, "There is no need to be so paranoid, we are safe as long as we aren't directly providing information of the specifics of the outside world to the villagers..."
Mr. Li had a pondering look on his face as he paused.
"Hmm, it is weird though. We merchants of the caravans have gotten away with dropping some big hints to the villagers we wanted to recruit in the past. For some reason, they don't want the blacksmith to leave. . . at least, they want to make it as hard as possible to recruit him."
Matt had a worried look on his face as he responded to the old man, "But what if he leaves without a caravan and ends up captured as a servant to some warlord or . . ."
He whispered the last part of his sentence, ". . . wizard."
Immediately, Mr. Li responded with a look of exasperation, "Gah! That is precisely what I want to prevent!"
He began to nervously stroke his small white beard as he continued, "The young man has a special martial gift or blessing or something that allows him to forge weapons like that."
Mr. Li then began drumming his fingers on the side table, which had his tea, "With a talent like that, he would be snatched up by the first slaver that came across him when they realize he has no citizenship with the empire. . .Which could be PREVENTED if we got him in our caravan!! The Association of United Empire Caravans would prevent even a . . . wizard . . . from being able to enslave the poor boy!"
Matt began biting his nails in nervousness, clearly worried for the young man.
Mr. Li began pacing back and forth before sighing, resigned to the current situation.
"sigh, there is nothing we can do now. We will have to leave it up to fate, and fate tends to be an unforgiving mistress. . ."
The old man had a sad look on his face for a while, but eventually he came to terms with his inability to help the young blacksmith out.
. . .
Meanwhile, Mark had just finished orders for the villagers. He just had a few small pieces he reinforced for no extra charge, and some tools that needed repair, which he had also reinforced for them.
The guards had a couple of requests and some armor and weapons that needed to be repaired, which also got reinforced as part of Mark's plan to strengthen the village.
He stacked the different items into their respective places before getting his project sword ready.
He placed the warped and cracked sword with its chaotic multi-colored metal on his anvil to take note of the current appearance.
'It seems there is a marginal improvement . . . at least the metal is not frayed anymore, but the cracks and warping make it entirely unusable.'
He then moved over to the forge and stoked the fire, ensuring it had plenty of fuel before placing the sword into the flames.
He watched the sword begin to glow as it heated up in the flames. The cracks became less prominent, and the chaotic mix of colors faded as the red-hot glow of the blade overpowered the dull mix of colors, and the metal expanded in the heat.
Anabel watched Mark work, and she found herself entranced by the flow of the flames and the transition of the ugly blade into the glowing work in progress. She, too, started to feel as if the flames were whispering to her, trying to tell her secrets as Mark worked.
Mark pulled the blade from the flames when it was ready to be worked on, and he began is methodical hammering as he felt out the dissonance in the blade. When he found the rhythm he needed once more, he put his experience with the hammer to work and began shaping the metal as he felt was right.
The only sounds in the smithy were the crackling of the forge and the ping of the hammer as the cadence changed to fit the needs of the blade. At times it sounded like a symphony, and others like a free style of different percussional instruments all playing at the same time with no flow or direction.
To Anabel, it was both beautiful and slightly horrifying. Seeing the intensity that Mark worked at, losing himself as he devoted his entire being to working on the blade to the point that his hammer strikes began to produce the signature white flames they had both come to suspect was the form of some unknown magic that he has no conscious control over.
It was an overwhelming experience, and more entertaining than anything else she could experience in the small village. The different lights flashing past and the similarity of music Mark put on kept her coming back to watch all day. The idea that there might actually be something magical about the work that Mark did was more alluring than leaving with the caravan, even.
While she was not one to abandon the village, before she started hanging out with Mark at the smithy, she had entertained the idea once or twice.
'I doubt I would find anything so magical outside the village without having to endanger myself beyond what is reasonable. . .besides, he is kind of cute. . .'
Shaking her head of her stray thoughts, blushing a little at where they had ended up at the end of her musings, and focused back on Mark who looke to be near done with the work of the day.
She first glanced to the sky at her right and noticed that the day was just a couple of hours at end, meaning the caravan would be leaving soon.
As Mark finished his last few strikes, he laid the blade down on the anvil and stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow as he did so.
Anabel spoke after a moment, "Do you think it will be better this time?"
Mark looked over his shoulder slightly before fixing his eyes on the cooling blade.
"As far as I can tell it will still not be how I want it to end up, but the work today should be another good step in the right direction."
After he was done talking, there was a moment of silence, then the fated crack of the cooling blade sounded. Mark released a sigh of tension while Anabel grimaced a bit, feeling the pain of seeing something that Mark put so much effort into still turn out in such a sorry state.
As the blade fully cooled off, the chaotic colors could be seen and the spiderweb-like cracks appeared one after another. Mark picked up the blade with his hands, seeing it was cool to the touch, and abserved the improvements to the poor blade.
"Hmmm, it does look to be holding up at least marginally better. There is at least fewer cracks, and the warping looks slightly less pronounced. . ."
He let out another stressful sigh and put the blade away before cleaning up.
Anabel let him finish putting the smithy away, helping here and there where she could, and then spoke up with her idea to help get his mind off of the failure he had to experience once again.
"Why don't we go see the caravan off?"
Mark smiled and reached out to grab her hand as they walked off toward the caravan with her.