For nearly two more hours, Arwin made metal balls. Over and over, he worked to improve his control. For nearly two hours, he failed.
A pile of metal steadily built on the ground beside him as he tried again and again without pause. At first, his attempts seemed like they were all turning out the same. Dozens of lumpy pieces of metal that barely even resembled spheres made up the majority of his early attempts.
But failure didn’t come without progress. With every attempt he made, Arwin got a little better. The spheres grew a little more spherical. That was great in terms of seeing improvement, but it was less than ideal when the metal balls got round enough that they started to roll away the moment he set them down.
Arwin barely even noticed. He just kept making balls. Even though he was getting better, they still weren’t nearly as round as Wallace’s had been. There were still imperfections and slight malformations.
He was so focused on his work that he completely forgot where he was. All that remained in his eyes was the glowing lava and the metal going in and out of it. Even the metal itself was forgotten the moment after he checked it to determine where he could improve, abandoned in preparation for the next attempt.
Arwin’s concentration was broken as a loud crash split rose into the air. His eyes snapped away from the ball of lava just in time for him to see Wallace’s metal boots go flying off his feet as he fell on his back, having slipped on one of the balls that had rolled away.
The dwarf let out a slew of curses in several different languages as he scrambled upright, kicking one of Arwin’s carefully crafted spheres into the pool of lava in the process.
“By the Earth Father’s many tits, what is wrong with you?” Wallace demanded as he made his way across the smithy to grab his boots, taking care to avoid the other balls that had distributed themselves across the floor.
“Whoops,” Arwin said sheepishly as his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I’d already made that many. I thought they were just stacked up next to me.”
He’d already long since figured out that Wallace was the type of person who couldn’t give a proper compliment if his life depended on it. No matter how impressed Wallace actually was with anything Arwin did, there was no world in which he’d actually fully admit to it.
“I’ve always made it a life motto to try and be better than a goblin, so I’m pleased to hear I’ve accomplished my dreams.”
“I didn’t say you were better than a goblin. Just a blind and deaf one,” Wallace countered. His mouth was mostly covered by his beard, but Arwin could have sworn that it curled up in a grin for a brief instant before going flat once more.
“So, what’s next?” Arwin asked, scratching the side of his neck. “I’ve already established the harmony between myself and the metal’s song, so does that mean I can actually start practicing forging something?”
The other smith inclined his head. “Yes. You now know how to properly prepare metal to forge. Everything has a different song, but the fundamental method for the first step is identical.”
“How many steps are there, just out of curiosity? I’m really hoping you aren’t about to tell me there are forty more of these things just to make a single item.”
Wallace smirked. “That depends on you.”
Arwin’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “On me? I was under the impression you were teaching me how to do dwarven smithing. I thought the whole point was you had a bunch of fancy steps.”
“I am teaching you dwarven smithing. There are two parts to it,” Wallace replied. He nodded to the ball of lava in Arwin’s hands. “That’s the first. Every single dwarven smith does that. There’s no way around it if you want to properly prepare the metal. But the second — that part isn’t so easy.”
“Is this the part where I wait patiently for you to tell me, or am I meant to ask a bunch of really hurried questions and not give you a chance to answer any of them?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you. No two dwarven smiths are exactly the same because we’ve all got our own method of finishing up a project. There isn’t shit I can teach you for the last half. You’ve got to figure it out yourself.”
“You can’t — seriously? Why is it that I feel like I got scammed?”
Wallace let out a bark of laughter. “Then you learned an important lesson. Don’t shit yourself too quickly now. I’m not done with you. I can’t teach you anything else, but I can still lend a little more help.”
The dwarf reached into his pocket and pulled out a small blue ingot. Mithril. The skin on the back of Arwin’s neck prickled in unease.
“Hold on. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Isn’t it a bit early to risk wasting a material as important as Mithril?”
And I can’t help but notice that Lillia isn’t back yet.
“No,” Wallace replied, all the amusement gone from his tone. “This is the perfect time to use it. The first project you forge as a real dwarven smith, untrained and half-blind or not, will be one that shows your character better than any other. I think I’ve gotten your measure by now, lad. Enough to know you aren’t a bad sort.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“Shut up,” Wallace said, not so much as missing a beat. “I don’t take back my word easily, but I’m giving you two options. I can open a portal back to your smithy right now. Send you back with what you’ve got and pretend we never met.”
Arwin studied the dwarf quietly for several seconds. Neither of them budged an inch.
“And the other option?” Arwin asked, even though they both already knew what it was.
“I give you this Mithril and you forge an item with it. Your very temporary apprenticeship to me ends and I determine if you’re worthy of carrying the title of a dwarven smith or if you need to be purged. There’s no going back from either option.”
“It’s not really much of a choice, is it?” Arwin snorted and held his hand out. “Give me the Mithril. I didn’t waste all this time just to give up at the last minute.”