Chapter

Twenty

The next day he lined up early outside of Toros’ shop. Normally his chores would involve him and two or three other boys, except for days when he worked in the fields outside the walls. Today was another exception apparently, since there were more than a dozen kids with him, including Zilly and Myra.

He tried to edge away from Myra by hiding behind Davi, but Zilly made a beeline for him, which meant that of course Myra came too.

“How’s Marksi? Can I hold him?” asked Zilly, and Marksi slithered into her arms before she even finished the question.

“Oh, you’re here,” said Myra. “I thought this was only for children from the town.”

“Nope, beasts from the forest were invited, too. Otherwise, why would you be here?” said Brin.

“Me? You literally live in the forest, Brin. I bet you’re doing evil… forest things. Did you get those clothes from the last child you ate? Is that why they don’t fit?” asked Myra.

Brin looked down. She was right. He was growing fast, and nothing fit him very well anymore. His pants were up past his calves. It was too bad, as these were the clothes he’d been reborn into, and they were dyed a dark blue. He had a few sets of clothing that he’d bought here in town, but they were made of uncolored black wool. For some reason he could never seem to get to the general store when linen was in stock, the only other local fashion option.

He also had the thin overcoat he’d been wearing when he woke up in this world. It was half worn away at this point, but he wore it because Marksi liked to stay in the hood.

He generally hadn’t noticed that his clothes were getting this small, but now it would be the only thing he could think about for the rest of the day.

Trying to play it off, he flexed his hard-won muscles. “Maybe this is how they’re supposed to fit.”

Zilly laughed and put a hand to her mouth, and Myra sneered and started to say something, but Davi cut in. “Cut it out, you two!”

They were spared further banter by the arrival of Toros. Brin would say he was a stereotypical dwarf, but didn’t really know if that was a thing here. He needed to ask. For all he knew it was common knowledge that there were elves and dwarves around.

Either way, if there were dwarves, Toros could totally pass for one. He stood maybe four and a half feet tall, had absurdly muscular arms, and wore a thick leather apron and leather gloves that went to his elbows. His face had a raccoon tan—it was dark red on his cheeks and nose, but his eyes were the normal ruddy tan of the people of the city. The raccoon tan probably came from using the goggles on his forehead; they had dark lenses and looked like steampunk sunglasses.

He walked energetically, and his hands were always moving. Checking the tools on his belt, stroking his long black beard, or gesticulating as he spoke.

“Alright, gather round, that’s it,” Toros said to the gathered children. “I’m Toros the [Smith]. Don’t call me a blacksmith, because I work with more than just iron. You could call me a black and metalsmith or just a metalsmith, but [Smith] is the name of the Class the gods gave me, so [Smith] is good enough for me. Now, you’re here to learn the ins and outs of the trades of the town, but I’m not much for fancy speeches. So why don’t you come inside and I’ll show you around.”

He darted inside the smithy, and they followed into a large open room, all made of brick with a cement floor. There was a line of six anvils, a long worktable with various tools, and a grinding stone. Brin was surprised to see a metal drain in the center of the floor. He wasn’t sure what it would be used for. In case they needed to douse the room to put out fires? Now that he was looking for it, he saw a waterspout attached to a rubber hose, strung up to the side. It was a match for the enchanted waterspouts that many of the villagers had in their homes, only much bigger.

Toros’ apprentice Simao was hard at work pumping the bellows into the big furnace in the center of the room, but he stopped and pulled up his goggles when they entered. “The temperature is just about right. Maybe five minutes before you can get started.”

“Alright, well, keep it going, it’ll take longer than that to cover the basics,” Toros answered. “Look over here, kids. Let’s start with the anvil. You ever wonder why they’re always shaped like this. Well…”

Toros went through the room, offering explanations for every piece of equipment, in a happily excited tone. He clearly loved this stuff and showed them tongs and clamps with all the energy of a two-year-old showing off a stuffed animal collection. Some of it Brin already knew from being a fantasy nerd, but lots of the specifics were new to him. Especially in the ways that things were enchanted or changed to harmonize with Toros’ skills. The furnace got hotter than it should be able to, enabling Toros to work with steel. Part of the heat came from the bellows, which only worked as well as they did because he and Simao had the right Skill. Some of the hammers were stronger than steel, but some were softer for more brittle materials.

As Toros went through the room, explaining the tools, Marksi jumped out of Zilly’s arms and moved up to get a closer look at the things Toros was pointing out. The [Smith] pretended not to notice, but by the end he was talking to Marksi instead of the children.

Toros went through workplace safety as well. Leather gloves and aprons were to be worn at all times. The black-glass goggles needed to be worn any time they were going to look directly at the flame or molten metal, and also to protect against sparks. There was a special iron helmet that looked like a welder’s helmet from his old world, which they used when working with the most dangerous flames, although Toros’ high Vitality protected him for day-to-day activities.

After that, he surprised Brin by picking out six of the children, half the class, and having them don sets of aprons, goggles, and gloves that he’d prepared in advance. He was really going to let them try it out.

Sadly, Brin wasn’t in the first batch, but Davi and Zilly were, so this meant he got to watch his friends go first and learn from their mistakes.

“You’ll be making nails today, from iron. This is the first thing a [Smith] learns to make, and one thing we spend most of our time making. Unless we have an apprentice, then we make them do it. Simao makes two hundred and fifty a day, and he’s so sick of it just thinking about them is liable to make him puke. Ain’t that right, Simao?”

“Nah, don’t listen to him,” said Simao with a smile. “[Smiths] love smithing, otherwise we’d have a different Class.”

“Bah!” said Toros. He walked over to the forge and used a pair of tongs to draw out one of the thin metal rods that were sticking out of the flame. It was bright yellow on the end that was in the fire, then red towards the middle, and regular iron gray at the end where Toros held it by the tongs.

“This is your starter. I’m grabbing it here at the end with the tongs. It would be cool enough to touch with your bare hands right here, but we aren’t going to touch it with our bare hands. We never touch anything that comes out of the forge with our bare hands, or with gloves for that matter. We always use tongs. I have a Skill to resist burns, and I still use the tongs, even when I’m alone.”

He placed the hot part of the thin pole onto the anvil. “Now, there are seven techniques that you need to work metal. We’re going to use two of them to make a nail, so if you can do these two things you’re about a third of the way to being a smith. The first is called drawing. It means drawing out, making something taper into a point.”

Marksi started to slither towards the anvil, and Simao snatched him up from the floor and gave him back to Brin. Marksi squirmed around in his arms until he could get a good look at what Toros was doing.

Toros hit the metal with a black hammer. He stopped after the first hit and glanced at Marksi, but the loud sound didn’t bother the snake, though some of the children put fingers in their ears. He nodded, then kept going.

Carefully and precisely, he struck the metal repeatedly, pulling it out to make it thinner and shaping it into a sharp point. The nail wasn’t circular like Brin was used to, but square shaped, with four sides all the way to the needle point.

The [Smith’s] blows were softer than Brin expected. He wasn’t banging with his full strength, but looked like he was tapping softly, mostly concerned with not splattering the metal or flattening it too much. The nail shaped up quickly, almost magically quick, but at the same time Brin got the idea that Toros was holding back and going slowly so that the children could see what he was doing.

“The second technique is called upsetting. That’s where we squash the material and make it thicker. That’s how we’ll make the nail head.”

Toros grabbed the hot part of the nail with the tongs, then took out a pair of pliers and snipped right through the hot iron as if it were made of cheese. “There’s another way to do this in case you don’t have the Strength, but for today just ask when you’re ready and we’ll cut it for you.”

He put the nail in a vise on the worktable and tightened it shut. Then he hammered the top of the nail until the end of it flattened out and made the nail head. That done, he dunked the nail in a bucket of water for cooling before setting it on a shelf.

It was a bit bigger than the nails Brin was used to. About three inches long and a quarter inch thick, but Brin supposed that since they all had to be made by hand, they probably preferred to use fewer, larger nails here.

He also noticed that the other nails on the shelf were perfectly round. Ah, he’d made this one square for their benefit. Because it would be easier, probably.

Davi, Zilly, and the other four children in the first group used tongs to pull their rods out of the fire and take them to their anvils. Davi started banging right away, and his rod flew out of his tongs and landed on the floor, which drew a round of loud laughter from Myra, who was watching with Brin on the sidelines. He picked it up, embarrassed, and tried again. By the third try he got the hang of it and started making huge dents in the metal.

Zilly held the tongs more confidently and tried out a few testing taps, which made no visible dent in the metal. She hit it with the hammer harder, probably as hard as she could, and finally there was a noticeable dent. She kept hitting, slowly thinning the metal out and driving it to a point.

Davi finished his nail in minutes, and frankly it looked like garbage. It sort of went to a point, but it took so many twists and turns to get there it hardly counted as a nail. Simao finally ordered him to stop abusing the metal, so Davi took it over to the clamp and put a head on it with a few hard taps, then dunked it in the water. Despite how it looked, he seemed very pleased with what he had made.

The other three boys in the group ended up with crooked nails, all done in a matter of minutes. Zilly and the other girl took a lot longer. They tap, tap, tapped away over the course of fifteen minutes, switching arms when one got too tired. Eventually, though, they ended up with nails that were nearly a perfect match for the one Toros had made.

Then it was Brin’s turn. He handed Marksi off to Zilly’s eager hands, then took his rod out of the flame and set it on an anvil, determined to follow Zilly’s example and not Davi’s. Zilly had much higher Dexterity than him—Hogg had said all the girls had Dexterity over twenty-six. Brin couldn’t match that, but he could at least be as careful as she had been. He tapped the metal softly, then harder and harder until it just barely started to move the metal. It was harder than he expected, but still perfectly within reason. He could hit it a lot harder, but he wanted to do it right.

Slowly, carefully, he hammered out the metal, keeping it perfectly flat and tapering it down to a nice point. It took him ten minutes, and some of the boys snickered at him, completely oblivious to the fact that their nails looked like complete garbage.

“Nicely done. Go ahead and put the head on it,” said Simao, breaking Brin out of his concentration. His nail was done, the last minute he’d been tapping out imperfections that were too tiny to really matter. Simao cut off the end, and Brin brought it over to the clamp. He made sure it was tight, and gave it a strong, solid hit. Again, the metal was surprisingly hard for how brightly yellow it was glowing, but still well within range for him to move it how he wanted. A few more hits and it was done.

He doused it in the water and moved to place it on the shelf, but Simao said, “Go ahead and take it. It’s cool enough to touch; we’ve got a Skill working on the bucket.”

“I can keep this?”

“Of course,” said Simao. “No one has the right to take something you made with your own hands.”

“Unless they own the smithy and the metal and the tools and use their skills to help you every step of the way,” said Brin. “But thanks!”

It was just a nail. He was crazy rich now, he could afford a wagonload of nails without making a dent in his wallet. But this nail was special. No amount of money in the world could give you something you’d made with your own hands. Only effort, sweat, and blood could do that. It was a good nail, as good as anyone in the group had made. He was certain he’d keep it for a long time.

Through your efforts you have increased the following attribute.

Dexterity +1

Well, that was nice. He’d probably gotten it since he’d been careful to do it right. He’d accomplished a task, and it was a Dexterity-intensive activity. At least for him.

“Hey, did anyone else get a point for that?” he whispered to the other kids.

“I got a Strength,” said Zilly.

“Aw man, I didn’t even think of that!” said Davi.

“How are you doing on Dexterity?” asked Brin. He was taking a risk. Adults did not like to talk about this, but maybe kids his age would be different.

“I’m still four away,” said Davi.

So people did talk about earning achievements as children. He knew Hogg had been overreacting.

“Oh, I got that ages ago. I don’t think I’ll make it to the second threshold before System Day, though,” said Zilly. “I think I’m going to stop trying and go for Strong I instead.”

“Shut up, guys!” said Myra. “Achievement-chasing is a sure way to get an evil Class. Mom says so.”

“She would know,” said Brin.

Toros must’ve overheard them, because he said, “You’ll get attributes for accomplishing new things. It’s one of the reasons we do this. You’ll all get another chance to make another nail, in case you did a crappy job this time,” said Toros, eying some of the boys.

“Don’t need it!” said Zilly, proudly holding up her pristine nail. “Girls rule!”

“Yeah, but it took you forever!” one of the boys shouted back.

“Doesn’t matter, at least we did it right. Girls rule!”

“Ok, but Brin did it pretty fast and he made the best nail in the group,” said Davi.

Everyone stopped and looked at him. They’d divided into groups, boys on the left and girls on the right. Brin looked between them, then stepped to the girls’ side and raised a fist in solidarity. Marksi nodded from his shoulder and chirped in agreement. The boys groaned while Zilly cheered and patted him on the back.

“Alright now, enough of that,” said Toros, smiling in amusement. “So what do you all think about being a [Smith]?”

“It was fun!” said one of the boys. “Can I make a knife?”

“That’s right, it is fun!” Toros replied to the comment but ignored the question. “Smithing is hard work, but it’s rewarding. You get to make neat things, you get to provide a service that everyone needs, and there’s always another challenge to keep the levels coming. I get to make meat hooks, gears, pulleys, all sorts of clever little mechanisms. Those are the days that really launch me out of bed in the morning.”

Toros had some examples out. In addition to the gears and pulleys he’d mentioned, there was a little cage on a chain that Brin knew was for lowering food down into a well for people who couldn’t afford refrigeration enchantments. There was a meat hook and a set of what could be oddly shaped shackles, too wide for human feet.

“What are those?” he found himself asking.

Toros smiled beneath his beard. “Hobbles. Horses are pretty good about learning not to kick you when you’re shoeing them, but oxen need to be held down. These were a right puzzle to make; it was great! Challenges mean growth, and growth means better challenges.

“But there are things about smithing that aren’t so good. One thing, it’s expensive. It’s expensive to get started, and it’s expensive to learn. Hammon’s Bog helped me get started, and I owe the town for that, but not everyone is so lucky. A lot of [Smiths] take years and years doing lesser crafting, tinkering, or repairing before they can finally afford what they need to really get started. If one of you gets [Smith] I could take you in as an apprentice like Simao over there, but to tell you the truth, there isn’t even enough work in this town for Simao and me. Metal is expensive, and there’s not a lot who can afford my best work. People need regular stuff. Horseshoes, nails, simple implements, stuff you don’t even really need the Class to make. Most people in town have one or two really nice tools they got from me, and for everything else cheaper stuff that doesn’t help my levels, or what they can have Ademir the [Crafter] make.

“I also make weapons to sell out of town, and I service the nearby Bogs, although of course some of that dried up when…” He glanced at Brin, then cleared his throat. “Point is, getting started as a [Smith] is tough. The normal path for a [Smith] is to follow around a [Warrior] or something similar. Weapons and armor break during combat way more than most people think, and just one physical combat Classer can provide a [Smith] with a decent amount of work. Some [Smiths] are adventurers or soldiers. There’s a strike Skill that can be used in combat, and imagine repairing your armor right in the middle of a fight!”

Toros went on for a bit about the joys and pitfalls of being a [Smith], and Brin listened while turning his nail around and around in his hands. Yeah, it made sense that it would be hard to start out as a [Smith]. If you had a clump of iron, or maybe even something rarer, why would you give it to a low-level [Smith] when you could give it to someone like Toros and get something amazing?

Turns out Perris’ speech about how money was everything actually held some water. If you could afford to waste materials, it didn’t matter if anyone hired you. You could get to a high level on your own. Were other professions like that? Probably not to the same degree. [Woodworkers] wouldn’t have the same trouble getting materials. [Leatherworkers] might, though. Perris was a [Leatherworker]. He wondered if he had a hard time getting good materials.

Toros finished his lecture and the kids went their separate ways, but Davi walked beside Brin as he made his way out of town.

“How are you doing it?” asked Davi.

“What do you mean?” asked Brin, instantly panicking on the inside. Which one of his secrets had Davi seen through?

“How are you getting so strong so quickly? I was miles ahead of you when you first got to town, but you’re catching up quick. Meanwhile, I’ve been stuck at thirty-three Strength for four whole months now,” said Davi.

Brin laughed, mostly at the sudden release of tension. He didn’t need to keep this a secret, just whose idea it was. “Oh, that’s easy. Hogg says that you need to do three things to bulk up. Eat a lot, sleep a lot, lift a lot…”

He talked through his morning and evening exercise routines, and Davi nodded along with enthusiasm. When he got to the part about his diet, he saw Davi’s face start to fall.

He felt like a jerk. His high-protein diet was expensive, too expensive for whatever allowance Davi was getting, which could very easily be nothing. How to fix this?

“What’s wrong? It’s not that hard to eat right. Is this about cutting back on sugar? I’ve seen the bakery near your house, so I don’t blame you for nonstop binge eating pastries, but if you want to get stronger you need to cut back.”

Davi looked like he’d swallowed a frog. “That’s not⁠—”

“Look, I’ll make it easy for you. Come at dawn and we’ll work out together, and you can eat what I’m eating. It’ll be easy; you won’t even have to think about it.”

Davi’s face darkened. “My parents won’t want me taking a handout.”

“Who’s offering a handout? Marksi, did you hear me offering a handout?”

Marksi chirped, happy to be part of the conversation.

“It’s not that weird to eat breakfast at your friend’s house, is it? If we went to your house right now, your mom would try to feed me, and don’t try to tell me that’s not true,” said Brin.

“If you’re sure…” said Davi. “Then you should come to my house at least once a week. That way my parents won’t think you’re giving me charity.”

“That could work. Actually, that could be better. People are already starting rumors that I’m doing ‘evil forest things.’ It might be a good idea to work out right in the middle of town once in a while,” said Brin.

“Nobody’s saying that except for Myra, and she… Listen, she’s really not that bad once you get to know her,” said Davi.

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Brin.

Brin spent the day after the lesson working with Hogg on Dexterity. Hogg had him learn to juggle, and he managed to get a hang of juggling three balls in an hour, and then spent another four hours moving up to four and then five balls. The System didn’t reward him, but Hogg seemed to think they were making good progress.

The next morning Davi was as good as his word and showed up at exactly dawn. Brin went through his regular set of exercises, but having someone else along motivated him to work harder than ever. Someone else other than Marksi, that was. The little snake did his typical mimicry of the workout routine, which sent the boys into fits of laughter more than once.

To his surprise, he got a notification when the workout was done.

Through training you have increased the following attribute.

Strength +1

Only two days after his last one, that was terrific news. It would be difficult, but he still thought he’d be able to get to Strong II on top of getting Dexterity, Will, and Vitality past the first threshold. He just had to stay on top of things. Davi got the same notification, and he was also over the moon about it.

After the workout, Brin made breakfast and put six eggs, half a roast chicken, a couple slices of bread, and a glass of milk in front of Davi. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise at all the food, but Brin put the exact same meal in front of himself, too, and tucked in like it was the most natural thing in the world. Neither of them saw Hogg, but he tended to sleep in most mornings, and he was a coffee for breakfast type of person regardless. Brin put the kettle on for him, and then he and Davi set off for the day.

He was in such a good mood after getting another point in Strength that he didn’t remember what they were going to be doing that day, so it hit him all at once when they crossed the gates into town.

Today was the day they were supposed to learn from [Weaver] Tawna.