Arwin’s breath caught in his chest, and the grin on Wallace’s lips grew even larger in response. That only made his shock grow even stronger still. Getting another Challenge was surprising, but the look on the dwarf’s face spoke volumes.
Wallace knew exactly what had happened. This wasn’t a coincidence. The Mesh hadn’t just happened to decide to give him a Challenge the moment the dwarf had finished speaking. The Mesh may have been the delivery tool but it had been Wallace that gave him the challenge.
“It worked, did it?” Wallace asked.
“How?” Arwin asked, struggling not to look like a fish out of water. “That’s impossible. You can’t control the Mesh.”
The other smith doubled over in a fit of uproarious laughter. He slapped his knee and shook his head as he tried and failed to contain his mirth. Arwin couldn’t even muster the ability to be annoyed. All he could do was stare in shock as Wallace gathered himself.
“Of course I can’t control the Mesh. That doesn’t mean I can’t influence it. The world is all about push and pull. Give and take. The Mesh responds to the environment and seeks to create capable, motivated people. If all the circumstances are right and the stakes are there… why wouldn’t it activate? Granted, it’s right rare. Really rare. I didn’t know for sure it would work this time around, but I had a ‘feelin.”
Arwin couldn’t argue with that logic, but it somehow only served to confuse him even further. He shook his head and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He’d only first heard of Challenges a short while ago, and not once as a Hero. The rest of the Menagerie hadn’t had much more information on them.
I’m not going to buy that it was this easy to make a Challenge. Someone else would have stumbled upon it before. The only way you can keep something of this scale secret is if it’s incredibly rare.
“No. There’s no way I’m just buying that. You’re skipping something.”
“You can lose the Challenges. Not fail them, but lose them,” Arwin breathed. That was what happened to Olive. She hadn’t failed her Challenge. The Mesh would have told her if she had, even if she’d been unconscious. It had been stolen from her. He didn’t know if it had been taken by the monster in the dungeon or Olive’s old team. Arwin wasn’t even sure if monsters could get Challenges, but he didn’t see why they couldn’t. It just made too much sense for it all to be a coincidence. “I have no clue how, but there’s a way to take someone else’s Challenge, isn’t there?”
“Struck the ore vein.” Wallace gave Arwin an approving nod. “Well done. As to how, it depends. Every Challenge is different. There’s no universal answer, but I think you can see why people that get Challenges don’t go speaking about them. You get yourself killed.”
“What about the people that already finish their challenge, though?” Arwin asked. “They’d have no reason not to—”
“Other Challenge holders. I don’t know what kind of things you’ve seen, but these Challenges get big, lad. Real big. I’m talking kingdom level things. They’re one of the best and worst kept secrets in the world. You don’t talk about Challenges in the open. Either a friend tells you or you get one. That’s it.”
Arwin blew out a sigh and rocked back on his heels. This explained so much — and at the same time, it explained nothing at all.
If this is all true, then why did I never get so much as a tiny Challenge as the Hero? Did the Mesh hate me or something? It feels like I got another piece of a puzzle, but it doesn’t fit in the bloody hole I’m trying to stick it into.
“That,” Arwin said, finally mustering his thoughts, “is quite annoying.”
“So it is. Don’t go telling anyone you don’t trust with your life, yeah? It might depend on it. The good news is you aren’t leaving this smithy with that Challenge. Either it’ll be done or you’ll be dead.” Wallace flashed Arwin a wide, toothy grin. “And I’m speaking honestly when I say I hope it’s the former. Just don’t harp on it too much or make any more of those damnable metal balls or I’m going to change to hoping for the latter.”
Arwin let out a snort of laughter. It wasn’t like there was much else he could do. There were so many things that Challenges could have been connected to that he couldn’t even begin to list them all off yet. For now, Arwin supposed that all he could do was focus on passing the one before him.
“I don’t suppose you can give me at least a little advice as to what it is that makes dwarven smithing different from normal smithing when it comes to the actual forging bit?” Arwin asked.
“A man smiths by hand. A dwarf smiths by heart,” Wallace replied without missing a beat. “Don’t get caught up in the semantics. You’re finding your own way. Search for what comes naturally to you and embrace it.”
“Huh. That’s… surprisingly useful advice, actually,” Arwin said slowly. “At least, I think it is. I’m not sure yet.”
“Are you implying I don’t normally give good advice?”
The dwarf chuckled and headed back over to his corner of the smithy without another word. Arwin’s attention returned to the small piece of Mithril that Wallace had left him. The only things he had to work with for this item were it and a bunch of rough steel bars, the exact name of which Arwin didn’t even know.