Arwin’s hammer broke.
If anything, it was a surprise that it had lasted this long. He’d been working on trying to hammer the scales whilst they were still in the hearth, which probably hadn’t been his smartest idea, but he wanted a way to connect them that was better than scale mail.
Even though Arwin had taken care to avoid letting the wood get too close to the fire, there was only so much he could do. It wasn’t like the hammer had been in great shape to start with, and the extra stress on it finally proved to do it in.
Arwin didn’t even bother trying to pull the handle from the fire. He watched it burn beside the red-hot scales, his nose screwed up in annoyance. It had been two days since he’d gotten back from the hunting trip, and he’d spent both of them completely focused on working with the scales.
If he’d focused on making what he already knew how to make, it wouldn’t have been a problem to make a few more magical items. But, instead, Arwin put everything he had into figuring out how to make himself greaves.
He’d made several pairs of scale mail greaves without too much difficulty, but that had taken hours and the majority of them had all been either completely non-magical or detrimental. Their actual shape had been decent, which was at least something to be proud of. His practice had started to spill over, but they still weren’t perfect.
He made a few more attempts, managing to make a grand total of two normal, non-detrimental sets of scale mail greaves before he decided to push things a bit farther.
He attempted to hammer the scales together into a single plate rather than individual links, and Arwin had been pretty sure that he’d been making progress – but all of that had ended with the breaking of his hammer.
“Well, that’s annoying,” Arwin said. He tossed the head of the hammer in his hand, chewing his lower lip as he tried to figure out what to do next. There wasn’t a good answer beyond the most obvious one – he had to go buy a tool to work with.
“I hope they serve you well,” Arwin said.
“I’m sure they will. I’m pretty sure you cut me a great deal. What are you going to do with the other pair?”
“Probably still try to sell it. A little more gold would go a long way.”
“How much?” a woman asked. Arwin and Rodrick both turned toward its source – a middle-aged woman sitting at a table alone, clad in normal clothes but with a well-worn sword hanging at her side. There was a twinkle of interest in her blue eyes, hidden behind strands of black hair. “I haven’t seen anyone try to make anything out of Forest Lizard scales before. You found a pretty interesting blacksmith there, lad. If you’re still looking to sell, then I’d be willing to bargain.”