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Daniel woke up, rolled out of bed and fumbled for his rosary. He got on his knees and started praying. It was a lot easier, he found, in this internet-free world, to concentrate. Though he did miss being able to look up the morning psalms. Prenn barged in.
"You awake in there?"
I guess it's also hard to concentrate here. "Yeah, I'll be out in a moment."
"Good we gots quite a bit of work to get to today."
Prenn left and Daniel tried to resume where he left off.
It turned out that the work they needed to get to was repairing the pig pen. One very dirty hour of digging and hammering later, and it was time for breakfast.
"I know I'm supposed to help you out around here, in exchange for you letting me stay here. And I know that we'll be very busy come harvest time. But. I was wondering if I could get some time to work on a little experiment that might make some money." Daniel asked as they headed back in for breakfast pottage.
"What kind of experiment?" Prenn grunted.
"Well, I was talking to the blacksmith yesterday and he was telling me that steel is rather expensive around here. But I know how to make steel, and if I can do it easily enough, it might be pretty good money."
"You've made steel before, then?"
"Well, no. I've seen people do it, though. And I understand most of the principles behind how it works. But I admit, it might not work at all. That's why it's an experiment."
"Hmm."
They walked in silence for a bit.
"What do you need for this?"
"Well the bloomery I can make out of clay, but I need charcoal and iron ore to make it work. I know how to make charcoal, of course, but the real question is whether I can find any useful ore."
"Well, do you know what the ore looks like? Maybe I can point you in the right direction."
"Uhh... I'm not totally sure. I've seen this guy use this slimy bacteria thing but he barely made any metal... I know iron is reddish. Any likely looking red rocks around?"
"Red rocks?" Prenn raised an eyebrow.
"Reddish? A hint of red? Gray-red? I don't know. It's an experiment!"
Prenn grunted. "Let's eat first."
It was decided that after the animals were taken care of, the other chores could wait. It turned out that Prenn was fairly interested in being able to smelt metal like Daniel described, so he and Daniel went out into the hills behind the farm's fields, looking for potential ore-containing rocks.
"What about this?" Prenn asked, pointing to a near by boulder and rock pile.
Daniel squatted down in the dirt, turning over pebbles.
"I don't know. It just looks like rocks to me. I can tell it's not limestone or granite or quartz. But I don't know."
"Ehh. Find some and chuck it in the bag."
They were each carrying bags that they hoped to fill with different kinds of maybe-ore rocks to test on. Daniel grabbed a few likely looking stones and put them in his bag and they set off for another hill.
"Won't all the rocks be the same out here?" Daniel asked.
"Probably."
"So what's the point of taking a bunch of samples?"
"They might not all be the same."
"True."
They walked for a bit.
"But they are all heavy..."
"Quit yer whinin'."
When they finally returned to the farm, with bags full of rocks of pretty-much the same redness, Daniel was exhausted. Prenn was not, so they got to work building a bloomery.
"So how do we build this blooming thing?"
"Its called a bloomery."
"Yeah that."
"All we really need is some clay and a fire. Do you have a shovel?"
Prenn dug a pit, while Daniel drew water from the well. Daniel dumped water in the pit, took off his shirt and shoes, and got in there to start mixing up some clay.
"Do you have some straw to throw in here? It'll make the bricks stronger."
Prenn nodded and went to get some straw from the barn. When Prenn returned, Daniel mixed the clay while Prenn built the bloomery, which was basically just a 4 foot tall cylinder with a hole at the bottom for the draft to flow through. As evening approached, they lit a fire in it to dry out the clay.
"When do we add the ore?" Prenn asked.
"We need the clay to harden first. We can try the ore tomorrow."
"What? We didn't even use any of the ore we collected today!" Prenn complained as he gestured at the bags of rocks.
Daniel shrugged. "I never said this would be a fast process. Why do you think metal is expensive? If you could make it quick and easy then it'd be cheap."
Prenn frowned and grumbled as they went inside for dinner.
"Do you know any of the guards in town?" Daniel asked during dinner.
"Huh? Guards?" grunted Prenn around a mouthful of food.
"We know Deeb. His father helped you with the barn a few years ago, remember?" said Rhea.
"Deeb is a guard? He's just a kid!"
"Not anymore, dear. Kids all grow up eventually."
Prenn grunted.
"I thought you were going to stay here and didn't want to join the guards?" Elaine asked.
Is that her getting worried that I'm going to leave? Daniel wondered.
"I am staying here. I don't want to be a guard. But, I do have this [Martial Artist] class so I should find someone to train with if I want to level it up." he said.
"And you think the guards will want to train with you?"
Daniel shrugged. "I don't know, but one or two of them might."
"Well you should probably talk to the [Senior Guardsman] about it." Prenn suggested.
Daniel nodded. "I'll do that the next time I'm in town."
The next day, after morning chores, Daniel and Prenn examined their bloomery. Daniel reached inside to feel the walls from top to bottom.
"Seems dry to me." he said.
"Alright then, what's next?"
"Well, we should crush up the ore as much as possible to increase the surface area, and then basically just start a fire in the bloomery and fill it with alternating layers of ore and charcoal."
Prenn grunted and headed into the barn. He reemerged with a hammer and a bucket.
"Bring the ore around back, there's a big rock we can use as an anvil." he said.
Daniel hefted the back of rocks and followed Prenn behind the barn. There was a knee-high small boulder jutting out of the grass. Daniel set a medium sized piece of "ore" on it.
Wham! Prenn split it in thirds with a terrific swing of the hammer.
Wham! Wham! Wham! And the ore was reduced to rubble. Daniel swept it into the bucket and put a new piece out there.
After a few minutes of this, Daniel asked if Prenn wanted to switch.
"We can if yeh want but I'm fine. I have [Enhanced Endurance] and [Lesser Strength]."
Daniel whistled in appreciation.
"If you don't mind, how did you get [Enhanced Endurance]?"
Prenn shrugged. "I already had [Lesser Endurance] from before. But I had just spent one of the longest days of my life out in the field harvesting a bumper crop and when I lay down to sleep I got my twentieth level and the skill. I was almost too tired to care."
Daniel nodded. "I guess that makes sense. I bet you could run a marathon no problem."
"What's a marathon?"
"Its a race that's like 23 miles or something."
"Races are for young men and fools. But I repeat myself." he chuckled at his own joke.
Daniel sighed and placed another ore piece on the makeshift anvil.
A while later they had a bucket full of rubble that they hoped was ore. Daniel started a fire in the bottome of the bloomery and carefully added a pretty big pile of charcoal.
"Alright put a layer of ore on top." he said.
Prenn slowly poured the rubble out of the bucket onto the charcoal.
"That's enough." Daniel said, and started adding more charcoal.
They alternated like that until the bloomery was full, being careful to go slowly enough that the fire didn't get smothered.
"Now we we wait." Daniel said as he stood back admiring their work.
"No, now we work. Back to chorin'."
Daniel groaned and followed Prenn.
At the end of the day, Daniel's muscles ached. He hoped his body would adapt soon. Maybe I should let myself become a [Farmhand] to get some endurance skills... Nah, can't control what skills you get.
They stopped by the bloomery to see what their work had wrought. Daniel peered over the top. A wave of heat hit him in the face.
"Whew. Still toasty. The fire's mostly out though."
"So what do we do next?"
"Got a hammer? We gotta pound the bloom to separate the slag from the steel, if there is any."
"I'll get a shovel, too, to carry it to our anvil."
Prenn headed to the barn. Daniel grabbed a likely stick to use as a poker and started fishing around in the bottom of the ashes and burnt charcoal and eventually pulled a melted metallic black slag blob out. His stick caught on fire. He waved it to blow it out. Prenn returned, hammer in one hand, shovel in the other. Daniel grabbed the shovel and picked up the bloom with it. They hurried over to the "anvil" stone behind the barn, and Daniel set the slag on top.
"Hit it?"
"Hit it."
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. Daniel's ears were ringing as Prenn went to town smashing the bloom. Little bits of molten slag started to ooze out of the bloom. The pounding went on for a while, but as the bloom cooled less and less slag came out.
"I think that's all we can do for now. It's getting darnk anyway." Daniel said.
"This isn't steel." Prenn complained.
"Yeah, we need to re-heat this and pound it some more."
Prenn grunted. "Hmm. Why not just take this into town and see what the blacksmith can do with it? He's got a forge and a proper anvil."
Daniel nodded. "Good idea."
The next day, after "some chorin'" Daniel and Prenn headed into town to see what the blacksmith would make of their little bloomery project. As they walked up to the town gate, the guard on duty recognized Daniel with a shout.
"Hey! You're that crazy guy who gave me a goblin yesterday!"
"What? Oh yeah... What did you end up doing with him?"
"He almost escaped! But I chased him down and killed him."
"I feel safer already. Hey, you don't happen to know where the Senior Guardsman is do you?"
"Huh? Drade's on duty at the other end of town. Why do you need him?"
"I wanted to talk about training with him and some of the guards."
"Oh? You wanna join up as a guard? I don't know... unless Prenn here vouches for you Drade probably wouldn't let you in since you're a newcomer."
Daniel nodded and turned to Prenn. "Can we track down Drade before we leave?"
Prenn grunted his assent and off they went to the blacksmith.
THUD. Prenn set the blackened bloom down onto the workbench at the blacksmith's forge.
"What on earth? Where did you find that?" Ferdnor asked.
"We made it yesterday." Daniel announced.
Ferdnor raised an eyebrow in skeptisicm. "You aren't telling me you are some kind of [Forger] or [Blacksmith] are you?"
"No, I just convinced Prenn to try making some metal with me. I have seen it done before and since metal is so expensive around here, I figured it might be a more valuable way to spend time than picking weeds."
"Which we still need to do when we get back." Prenn reminded Daniel.
Daniel sighed.
"But where did you get a forge? How did you find ore?"
Daniel shrugged. "We just made a little bloomery and scoured the hills for likely looking rocks."
Ferdnor shook his head in amazement and inspected the bloom more closely.
"Well it's not very pure. And I bet the metal quality is highly variable since I doubt you kept the temperature and coal ratio consistent. But if you want me to toss this in the forge and pound the rest of the slag out for you, it shouldn't take too long."
"That'd be great!"
So Daniel and Prenn watched as Ferdnor showed them how a real [Blacksmith] worked a fresh bloom. He heated it glowing red hot and used some mighty blows of the hammer to do the job. Daniel couldn't be sure but he felt like it went way faster than when Prenn was doing it. Probably some Skill at work. When Fernor was done there was a steaming pile of slag strewn about the floor around the anvil, with scraps of iron laying on the anvil itself.
Daniel looked at the iron chunks and was a little disappointed. So little metal for so much work!
"If I forged this into a little ingot, it'd probably be about like this." Ferndor said holding his hands apart about six inches. "Could maybe make a little knife out of it. Dunno how it'd hold an edge though."
Prenn asked, "How much to do just that?"
"What, make a knife out of it?" Ferdnor asked.
Prenn nodded.
Fernor shrugged. "I don't know, a silver piece? The main thing is that I'm pretty busy right now."
Prenn nodded. "Do it whenever you get around to it then. I'll come pick it up later."
Ferndor and Prenn sealed the deal and Daniel and Prenn left to go find Drade.
Drade was napping. He used to be a bad guard because he napped so much, but then he got the [Wary Sleep] skill and suddenly he could nap at his post all he wanted and it didn't matter. It still looked kinda bad though, but Drade never cared much for how he looked. Thus, when Daniel and Prenn approached the napping Drade, he was well aware of where they were, and when he would need to wake up.
"Should we wake him up?" Daniel whispered to Prenn.
"Already awake, son." Drade said, straightening up.
Daniel was startled for a moment.
"He is a [Senior Guardsman], Daniel. Asleep or not, he ain't easy to sneak up on." Prenn chuckled.
"What did you citizen need from me?"
"Oh. Well, I was wondering if you or any of the other [Guardsmen] wanted some unarmed combat training."
"From who? You?"
"Yes, well, I recently gained a class, [Martial Artist] which is kind of like a [Brawler], and I'd like to train with some sparring partners but I don't really know anyone around here except Prenn and I figured that the guards would not mind learning a thing or two about how to deal with [Brawlers] or [Wrestlers] or whatever."
Drade raised a bushy eyebrow. "That was a mouthful. I think we know how to deal with [Brawlers], though. Just surround them with pointy spears and yell at them to settle down. Easy."
Daniel frowned. "I guess. But still, don't you guys have regular sword or spear training? Why not include some unarmed training? It might be useful after all, to know how to subdue someone without poking them full of holes."
"I don't need a spear to subdue you, bud."
Daniel sighed in frustration. "I don't doubt it. You're way higher level than me. I'm sure you have a bunch of skills to get you out of trouble. But without skills, you wouldn't stand a chance. And it's not like every single guard is as high level as you, right?"
Drade frowned. "Wouldn't stand a chance, eh? Against you? Come off it."
Sensing an opportunity, Daniel pushed forward. "I bet even with your extra strength and endurance from skills you probably have I could beat you in a wrestling match right now if you agreed not to intentionally activate any skills."
Drade laughed. "Alright, boy, you've had your fun, now run along."
"I'm serious."
Drade looked at Prenn. "And you think he's got a shot?"
Prenn shrugged.
"Hah. Okay then. Let's wrestle."
They walked into the nearby grass. Daniel took off his shoes and shirt in preparation. Drade took off his helmet and set down his spear and that was it.
"You're not getting naked are you? What kind of weirdo is this kid, Prenn?"
"Are you gonna wrestle in armor?"
Drade shrugged. "Why not?"
"Okay then."
Daniel did some joint rolling stretches to warm up.
"What are you doing now, kid? Dancing aint gonna help."
"Sheesh, dude I'm warming up. Alright I guess I'm ready. Remember, if you feel the pain, tap me twice and I'll stop. No need for us to injure each other."
Drade grunted and hunched over with his arms out in preparation. Daniel slowly approached. Daniel tried grabbing Drade's wrist to see how strong he was, as they circled each other. Drade pulled down, easily breaking the grip. He's strong, but that wasn't good technique. Daniel decided to just go for it. In a flash he shot in for a double leg takedown. Surrounding the tops of Drade's legs with his arms, he exploded up, while driving his head into Drade's chest, just as he had a hundred times before in practice. Drade was heavy, and his flailing certainly made it harder, but a quick adjustment of direction, and Drade's back hit the ground, with Daniel on top. Daniel immediately scrambled a knee inbetween Drade's legs and put both his hands on Drade's biceps. Drade fought against him, reaching his hands for Daniel's neck. Daniel quickly re-adjusted and pushed Drade's elbow across his own body. Daniel slipped his other arm under Drade's wrist, trapping it with the crook of his elbow. Then all he had to do was turn his shoulders and waist as his body weight pushed down on Drade's elbow while Daniel's elbow pulled up on Drade's wrist, causing an elbow-joint lock. Drade went from not worried at all, to on the ground, to in suddend sharp pain on his left elbow as Daniel cranked up the pressure. With a roar, Drade used all his strength and rolled, pushing Daniel off him and breaking his arm free of Daniel's lock.
Now Daniel was on his back, with legs around Drade's waist in guard position. Drade had been worried for a second there, but now he was on top, it should be easy to beat this little runt. Daniel lay back and waited. Drade reached for Daniel's throat, but as he extended his arm, Daniel kicked his leg up into Drade's armpit, and rotated, popping his hips out of Drade's control. With one leg over Drade's shoulder, he brought the other one up onto the back of Drade's neck and squeezed his legs tight to lock the shoulder in place. Then, with Drade's extended arm on Daniel's chest, he just grabbed Drade's wrist and crunched up and pushed the wrist into another arm-bar. Drade was furious. He pushed on Daniel's legs, trying to free his arm, but it was one arm versus Daniel's whole body. Drade was strong, but... not that strong. After on exruciating moment, Drade finally tapped out. Daniel let go and collapsed in a heap. He was out of shape. That short little roll was more tiring than he expected.
Drade was breathing heavily. He and Daniel looked at each other.
"Alright. I guess you could come by the guardhouse tomorrow morning and show us a thing or two."
Daniel smiled triumphantly.
Later that night he heard a pleasant notification in his head.
[Martial Artist Level 3!]
[Skill - Basic Jiu-Jitsu Obtained!]