Fifteen minutes later, the duo found themselves in front of a small whitewashed farmhouse, with chickens in the yard, pigs out back and one big shaggy dog on the porch. It was the perfect picture of farm life, and to Dominic, who was used to a culture that was a mix of technomagic or sorcery infused everything, it was like someone had made a rustic postcard real.
As they approached, the door swung open with a bang and a massive man in a simple tartan kilt, with his muscular chest bare, came running out with his arms spread.
"Bella, it is so good to see you again. I was just telling mother that we should come looking for you tomorrow, I was sure that it was your caravan that we saw charge through the battle this afternoon. Was anyone hurt? How is your gear holding up?" He asked in a rapid fire barrage that even Bella's guns would struggle to keep up with.
His youthful eagerness was at complete odds with his massive body. It was rather cute how happy he was to see her home safely.
"Wiz, we're fine. Better than fine, since Dominic here spent the whole trip fixing our gear instead of pretending that he was too busy. He's agreed to come along with us to hunt Goblins, and he's a caster as well as a blacksmith." Bella explained.
An older man's head stuck out of the window at the word blacksmith.
"Did I hear that right? Little Bella brought us a smith? An actual proper smith, not some hack from the farrier that doesn't even have the skill?" The older man asked.
Dominic smiled at who he assumed was Wiz's father. "Yes, I'm a proper smith, though I'm still a newer apprentice. This is my first trip out of the forge, and that's only because Bella's team was short of a smith to fix the vehicles if they were attacked."
His face lit up with joy at the news. "Good, perhaps you can fix this for me."
He gestured to something inside, and Bella motioned for him to go ahead while she caught up with Wiz.
"Good to meet you, you can call me Terry, and over here is my wife June. Now, we had a minor incident a few weeks back, and I don't know how to fix it myself, but I'm betting that you do." He explained, with a gesture toward a sword on the table, broken into three parts.
It had been a common grade magical weapon, but not a great one. Now, it was scrap iron, and Dominic wasn't sure how to tell him that you couldn't just fix a magical sword that badly damaged.
"Well, I don't think that I can fix that at my level of skill, but perhaps I could use the material to make up a new blade for you? It looks like it was made of decent iron." He suggested.
"Aye, it was made by the journeyman in town, and it was my son's favourite blade, until it suffered a minor incident with the flooring."
Dominic gave him a confused look, and the man looked sheepish.
"Well, you see, I didn't have a tool narrow enough to pull up that old floorboard and..."
"And you used a sword as a pry bar instead of letting the board keep squeaking? You're lucky you're his father." Dominic laughed.
"Can you make him another blade? I know that most apprentices don't learn weapon making, but if you can make the raw material into something to get through until he can get another suitable weapon drop, I would be in your debt."
Dominic smiled at the concerned father, who had made a massive mistake with his overgrown son's prized weapon.
"I come from a toolmaker's forge. I can rebuild a sword easily enough, and if he has a monster core, I might even be able to bring back a bit of its magic." Dominic agreed.
"Well, I've got a pile of coal out back if you've got a travel forge. That should be enough to get you started, I hope."
Terry led him to the back of the house in the fading light, and into a small shed full of crudely made farm tools, with a pile of coal and a crude forge. That would be where he repaired his tools, but going by the quality of tools on the farm, it was clear that he didn't have much of a clue what he was doing, and just did his best to keep the farm running without burning through what little money they had.
"Your forge will work well enough if I use the bellows from my travel forge to get the heat up. Let the others know that I'm out back, and I will get to work so that I can have this done by midnight." Dominic agreed as he inspected the forge room.
"Alright. They'll be a bit anyhow, it usually takes them hours to talk when Bella comes back home for a visit." Terry agreed.
"Are they related?" Dominic asked.
"No, she grew up on the next farm over, before her Pa passed on with a bad fever. That's when she went to the city and learned them fancy pistol tricks, you see. But our Wiz is taken with her, and we're hoping for a spring wedding."
"Alright, I'll learn the story from her in the morning. Unless you want to give me a hand with the bellows, I think I'm good to go."
The older man laughed and tossed a bit of coal into the forge, then lit it with fire magic and kindling from a basket that looked like it had seen many years of use.
"I can get the forge going well enough. I might not be good for much, but I'm good for that."
Dominic looked at him more closely and noticed that Terry's Trade Skill core was for a "Farmer", but he didn't see how that related to having fire magic, unless it was just enough to get the hearth and forge lit. He was good at it, pumping the bellows with a smooth rhythm born of practice, which got the metal heated and glowing in no time at all.
"I hope things get better soon. There's been a lot of talk about something riling up the Goblins lately. They've been attacking everywhere, and they're far more organized than they should be. I reckon that the town will set a bounty on them soon, so keep a left ear from them when you go hunting." He explained as Dominic pounded the metal back into one block and tossed it back into the forge to heat.
"There are problems with the Goblins closer to the city as well. Do you think that there is something else behind them? I had always thought that Goblins weren't all that bright." Dominic asked.
"Might be. But the Hobgoblins are smarter, and if they've got shamans or, deities forbid, a Lord, then they could be a real nuisance."
Dominic nodded. The Goblin Shamans were trouble.
"They've got both Hobgoblins and Shamans, I've seen both this week. Hopefully, there isn't anything worse."