[Gift] CRAFTING: Sturdy Weapon - Khal/Zanril

“Now that we’ve gotten the hang of our hammers, let’s look into something sharper.” Dhaoragan announced as the group gathered around a finished piece he was displaying. An iron sword, shaped straight and simple, with a round hilt made for Vayrons to hold. It’ll be bigger than the bracer they tried before, but many of the Vayrons there seemed confident in trying this new project. 

Zanril matched Khal when picking her metal, taking a chunk relatively similar to the old puller’s to get a head start on her work this time around. She put the piece down and picked up her tongs with the confidence of an experienced smith, though still waited to glance at Dhaoragan’s approval to get to heating up their metal. The puller was going on about the same information as before, on the heat of the metal, working the tongs, and all the beginning guidelines. With a half ear listening to the lesson, she placed her metal in the forge and watched the coals glow. Something was off.

Then the flames billowed through the cracks, and a gray puller stepped to her side. Khal was stepping on the forge blower, pushing air to feed the forge. “Need to keep it hot,” is all he said, before placing his own metal in as well. 

The air was hot on her face, as Zanril watched Khal work the blower in even rhyth, the sound of the forge crackling with heat and fire. It was like it was alive with how it yawned out flames. Soon enough her metal was glowing hot and she had to move it back to the anvil. It was like her fur wanted to singe away despite her protective gloves, whenever she leaned too close in to the forge. The burns this thing could give were sure to be vicious. 

Dhaoragan walked back over to the two of them, guiding their hammers to find the appropriate shape for the blade to form. Instead of thinning out the metal too much, they needed to make them longer, letting the hammer push out the shape as they went along. Khal took to the rhythm again soon enough, with Zanril finding her grip on the heavy tool. Maybe it was the chilly air she wasn’t used to, or it just wasn’t a good day for the forge, but the metal seemed all too stubborn today. 

Hammering out the kinks, and shaping the metal into a relatively even elongated slab, it was time to heat it again and take a more delicate hand on smoothing things out. Khal worked in his own silence, letting Dhaoragan look over his work before continuing on, seeming to race ahead of the other novices. Dark gray fur sweating under his mane, he huffed and inspected his metal. Yes, this will do nicely. He seemed to smile at his work a glimpse, before setting the metal in the water vat. 

The hilt of the blade wasn’t too different, aside from a different shape and building the pieces together to make a holdable handle. A round end for simplicity’s sake, though Khal’s became more diamond shaped, and Zanril’s was… an egg, off a glance, but they served their purpose well enough. The Vayrons were instructed to make blades they could hold in thor mouths, reinforced with some cushioning leather for their teeth, while Zanril and Khal made hand-held weapons, suited for their magic or longer digits. It was gratifying to hold the pieced together weapon in her hand and give a few loose swings with it. Khal’s chuckle interrupted the Haedian’s imagination and brought her back to the lesson.

When it came to sharpening the blade, Zanril looked most forward to seeing her hard work come to life. Sharp, a cutting edge capable of much slicing and dicing. She couldn’t wait. Lining up for the whetstone wheel was agonizingly slow it felt like, with Dhaoragan guiding a couple people at a time to hold their blades up to the stone and moving it from side to side. Soon, they began glistening with the edge coming into shape on the blade. 

Khal’s sword seemed larger than the others, but maybe he preferred a heavy blade for slashing the bigger opponents. Zanril’s blade was kept light and quick, something to hide under her cloak if she wanted. Sitting in front of the whetstone, she filed down the edges slowly but surely, feeling the metal rattle under her hand as the wheel spun against it. She’d have a novice piece of work, but she was proud of it. She could show Varrick her work and maybe find a way to make one for him as well. He’d like that, she was sure of it.

“Well dne again,” Dhaoragan praised the group as they all smiled at their own handiwork. “Perhaps soon you’ll be ready for something more advanced. For now, take care with your weapons, do not cut yourselves or each other.”