Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

[built_fjord_tough]

Back to the forge it was today, and Fjord was perfectly happy with that. He had his sword to finish working on, finally happy with the shape and getting to the point where he was ready to start tempering the blade. And he had a wealth of weapons that needed to be put back on display after Amaya had taken them out for... whatever it was you took an army's worth of weaponry off to a warehouse for... which he was going to get to doing first and foremost, mostly to get it out of the way.

... But also at least partly because he'd gotten into the habit of drinking coffee with Amaya in the mornings, and he'd rather not have to put his sword to the side if he wanted to drink it when he could just as easily put down the flail he was trying to get up onto the wall instead.

These were the important lessons of apprenticeship, right here.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[special_rabbit]

And, sure enough, there was coffee to be had, especially since it wasn't like Amaya had to travel too far to deliver it or anything. Besides, she sort of figured that, by now, Fjord might be getting a little tired of just beating his sword all day, so maybe it was time to move onto the next step.

"'Morning, Fjord," she greeted as she went to set his mug down on a worktable until he was ready for it, then took notice of what he was working on. "Ah, great! Thanks for helping with those! You know, it never really seems like it's that many weapons around here until you wind up having to move them back and forth a little."

Which she'd had to do twice now within the last week, but she wasn't complaining. She was mostly just glad they were getting some use.

[built_fjord_tough]

"Not a problem," Fjord replied, grinning faintly and turning to nod toward Amaya. "Seems like it was a busy week for weapons, hm? What were they doing with all of these, anyway?"

Probably not waging a small war, huh?

[special_rabbit]

Not exactly, no, but they'd certainly be a bit more prepared if they needed to!

Amaya grinned back a little. "More help for Diaz and her class," she said. "She wanted to do a sort of...survey, I guess, of different weapons, let her students get the chance to try and learn about things they might not otherwise get the chance to use. It went pretty well, too. Almost enough to make me want to go back to teaching weaponry again..."

As if most of her current class wasn't already that...

[built_fjord_tough]

"I find myself completely not surprised that you've taught weaponry before," Fjord mused, smiling as he reached for his coffee. "You've definitely got a passion for it, I'm certain any student at that school would be happy to have you teaching them on the subject."

That wasn't actually apprentice sucking up, either.

[special_rabbit]

"I'd certainly hope so," Amaya admitted, "though I think you're not wrong there, if I may say so myself. No complaints that I've heard so far, anyway. Well, except maybe over the summer, when I had my class building this place."

Which, considering it hadn't fallen down around them yet, seemed pretty good proof that she still hadn't done so bad a job with that particular class, either.

[built_fjord_tough]

"They did, did they?" Fjord gave a thoughtful hum into his coffee as he looked up around them, taking in the handiwork of her students. "Not bad. Not bad at all. They all have experience already, or did you talk them through the harder aspects of it?"

[special_rabbit]

"A few of them had a little bit," Amaya nodded, "but it was pretty new to most of them. All the harder stuff, I sort of handled myself," of course she did, "but they got to experience a good deal of it. Figured it was a good handy skill they could take with them, too, y'know. Case they ever find themselves needing to dig a foundation or pour concrete when they're out there in the world."

You never knew! It was a very useful thing to know!

[built_fjord_tough]

"Having some practical knowledge of construction can't hurt," Fjord agreed. "Never know when you'll find your home in need of repairs."

Or, say, a ship that you accidentally murdered the entire crew of and stole away to sea...

[special_rabbit]

...well, hey. Whatever floats your boat, really!

"And you can't always trust other people to do a good job, either," Amaya noted, although, obviously, around here, you could, because you could always just contact her, but not everyone could be so lucky.

"Speaking of good jobs," she added, "unless you'd rather spend today rearranging the weapon's wall, how're you feeling on the shape of your sword so far?"

[built_fjord_tough]

Fjord took another mouthful of coffee, smiled, and then set his mug down again.

"Actually," he said, "I was hoping to run it by you. I think I'm pretty satisfied with how it's turning out, but you're the one with the eye for these things. If there's something somewhere that I should throw a little more elbow grease into before I move along, I would be most interested in hearing what you have to say on the matter."

[special_rabbit]

Amaya took a big swig of her own coffee, too, before setting down the mug and brushing her hands together and giving her gloves a little tug, her universal sign for getting herself ready to get down to business. She held out one hand. "Let's have a look, then," she said. "Though from what I've seen so far, and knowing it's your first one, I'm thinking it might just about be ready for the next step."

[built_fjord_tough]

"Figure any lessons left to be learned here I'll pick up by making the mistakes myself, hm?" Fjord smiled crookedly, maybe even almost a little playfully, before walking over and picking up his sword, holding it out to her for her chance to inspect it.

Overall? It was a perfectly functional piece of work. No great artistry behind it; Fjord had mostly put his effort into doing it right, rather than doing it pretty. Pretty, he figured, he could sort out once he got a handle on practical.

[special_rabbit]

And pretty was more the next part, anyway, even if Amaya's expression seemed to suggest she was finding a few bits of pretty all the same. Granted, her idea of pretty and steel was pretty generous and specific, but, you know.

"Not bad, actually," she admitted. "Surprisingly even with your strikes, especially for your first time. That's a solid start. Good width, nice thickness. Could maybe go a little thinner with the length, but, really, that's just nit-picking at this point." She shifted the blade in her hands to hand it back to him carefully, hilt-first. "This'll work pretty well for the next step, really, if you want. Give you a little more to work with as we head into profile and bevels."

Mmmm. Bevels.

[notallbluemonks]

"Fjord!" Here was Beau, barging through the door with all the low key subtlety for which she was clearly known. "Hey, Fjord!"

[built_fjord_tough]

Ford damn near dropped a morning star at that, blinking and spinning on his heel to face her.

"Beau? What is it?"

Was he going to have to use the morning star on something?

... Well, maybe not the morning star in particular. But it was a hell of a look, sitting in the hand of a half-orc.

[notallbluemonks]

Beau skidded to a halt and leaned up against the wall casually. "Nothing, I was just bored and wanted to see if you were going to like freak out or something."

Even odds on whether the look on her face was supposed to be a smirk or a grin, but either way it kind of looked like the effort was painful.

[built_fjord_tough]

There was a full few seconds of silence, and then Fjord blew out a breath in something almost resembling a laugh, reaching to set the weapon to the side.

"Could have been interesting if I had," he noted, wryly. "Still bored, huh? Have you had a chance to look around town yet?"

[notallbluemonks]

"Yeah, I mean, there's not much of it, right?" Beau looked at him quizzically, not sure if that reaction had been amused or annoyed. "There's not that much to do. But no, like, what if you had freaked out? What would make that interesting?"

[built_fjord_tough]

"What would make me freaking out interesting?" Fjord blinked at her, and then lifted his shoulders in a bit of a dismissive shrug. "I could think of a few things, I suppose. Most immediately, the fact that I was holding a heavy spiked weapon at the time."

Plus the whole warlock thing. But, you know, namely the weapon.

"How about the mainland? Been there yet?"

Fjord this was a terrible suggestion no stop.

[notallbluemonks]

Bless you and your terrible, terrible wisdom score, Fjord.

"I could have avoided it, if you did," Beau said like the overconfident little shit she was. "It's fine. I'm like super dodgy."

She tilted her chin up, an interested gleam in her eye. "The mainland, huh? I'm still working on the whole surrounded-by-water concept here so I forgot that's like a thing I can do. Tell me more."

Might as well just start getting the bail money together, Fjord.

[built_fjord_tough]

"It's a super fucking crazy place," Fjord replied easily. Because that wisdom stat was doing him no favors today. "Giant vehicles that thunder down the road without horses to draw them, everything runs on electricity, the roads belong to the vehicles and the people... make about as much sense as anybody here, I suppose."

He lifted a shoulder.

"Plenty of places to drink," he added. Halloween with Fenris had been a good time. "Plenty of things the likes of which I've never seen. It's at least marginally more exciting than this island, anyway."

[notallbluemonks]

"Is it like all humans over there?" Beau wondered -- not that it was a particular problem for her, but. "'cause that's a little weird. Kind of throws me off. I'm not used to it."

She rolled her staff between her fingers as she spoke, and gave a tiny nod as if she'd just decided she hadn't annoyed him too much with her loud entrance.

"So worth seeing, at least for the experience? I'm into it. And the drinks. I'm all about that too."

[built_fjord_tough]

"It's even more human than Fandom is," Fjord sighed, shaking his head. "Fenris and I made our way out there for some sort of festival that's primarily about disguise self wearing costumes, and we finally managed to fit in then."

He shook his head a little.

"It's worth taking in at least once, though, if only for an experience unlike anything you'll ever get in the Empire."

Or along the Menagerie Coast, for that matter.

[notallbluemonks]

Or anywhere in Exandria, really.

"Yeah, that's really weird," Beau mumbled, rubbing at the back of her head. "Even where I grew up there were a bunch of halflings. This many humans and almost nobody else is a little disturbing. Is that weird?"

She shook her head. "I mean, I don't really care if it is. I just want to see the wild shit out there." And find a bunch of assholes to get in fights with, probably.

[built_fjord_tough]

"It isn't weird," Fjord replied anyway. "A world where everyone is so very much the same seems... incomplete, maybe. It's hard to put a finger on the right word for it."

He paused a moment, and then volunteered, "Fucked up?"

That could be it.

"At any rate, there's plenty of wild shit, all-human or no. Could be a hell of an interesting experience for you. Just, ah, stay off the road if you're not paying attention to what's coming. Fenris nearly learned that lesson the hard way."

Semi trucks were terrifying.