Lord Zee
Vec
Rekkuza
Iwannabeyours
princess
Cmmelody
Necrodancer
ActRaiserTheReturned
TimemasterAdrian Goodguard
(Post 3 of 8)Many hours past but eventually the bar was forged together. So it was time to grab the hammer and start beating. The now homogenous metal bar was glowing white hot every time Adrian pulled it out of the charcoal fire and started beating it with a hammer, pulling out the metal. The job was tougher than he had anticipated. Even with steel swords, it would take time. But the mithril core made it only worse. As it was harder to shape than steel. In other words, the steel was getting pulled out, but the tough, mithril core kept snug and thick. The only thing Adrian could do was slamming it more than the steel could use. Thus making the layers around the mithril thinner and the edges thicker. Eventually, after many hours of hammering out the metal, the metal finally started looking like a blade. But the hammering job wasn’t done yet. First, with the utmost precision, Adrian started beating out the only mithril that was coming out of the steel jacket. It took him a while, but he got the tang drawn out. Then he moved on to the edges. Hammering a slope downwards into them. Of course, that wouldn’t be enough for the blade to be able to cut. But it did shape it for him so grinding would be easier.
More than a day had passed already, but Adrian still had much to do. He grabbed a bar of beeswax and put it down on one of the workbenches. With various knives, scoops, hammers and chisels he started forming the shape of his pommel. Adrian was by far not as mastered in the art as his great-grandfather. Who could sit down with someone and sculpt a bust out of beeswax that looked so akin that Adrian often wondered if Aurelius was a sculptor in his past life? But maybe it was a trained art? The boy didn’t know. He kept going at the wax, sculpting the approximate form of a female head. Basing it on one of his sisters. Though the beeswax looked mostly like a featureless girl with long hair, hiding ears. But Adrian poured all his focus in forming the eye sockets, which he kept hollow for now. Once done, he packed the beeswax in wet clay and put the entire mold near his furnace so it could dry. In the meantime, Adrian took a glass he used to drink water from and smashed it into the ground. A hundred shards flew in every direction as Adrian cursed himself. He should have done that in a crate, he realized. Thus the hunt began for two suitable shard, in the shape of almonds. With sandpaper and file, he formed the two chosen pieces a little bit more.
Luckily for Adrian, the clay didn’t seem to have cracked anywhere once it was dry. Confident the clay was dry he put the mold inside the fire for a few minutes. The beeswax inside melted again, and as Adrian poured it out it left behind the exact form of his sculpt pommel. Losing no time he moved over towards the central forge. To Adrian, it had always been a beacon of might. The massive forge boasting several openings that were all sealed by metal doors was a mighty piece. The fires within roared and the charcoal burned. Normally Adrian would prefer to not lose much time. But the construction demanded so much respect for it that he could not help but stare at it for a moment. Even as it was evening, several other students were hard at work at their chosen opening. Trying to either melt metal for casting or creating alloys. Or black steel. Adrian didn’t know nor did he have the time to care. He moved swiftly towards a free opening into the forge and put his two crucibles, one filled with the bronze and another filled with two small nuggets of mithril, inside. It would take time and the power of bellows to let the flames melt the bronze. After an hour, Adrian was sure the metal has liquidized. He poured it into the mold and once again waited until the metal inside was cool enough to put into a bath of water. Obviously, the bath still steamed like it was working in a sauna. But Adrian kept it in there. Once cooled completely Adrian used a wooden mallet to beat away the clay. Revealing the small, eyeless pommel. An hour later and the nuggets were molten down too. Adrian cast the small bits of mithril inside the eye sockets, making mithril, lidless eyes. The extremely hot mithril started heating up the bronze eye-sockets. Once hot enough, Adrian pressed his almond shaped glass shards against the mithril. Sealing them. Some bubbles of air did form in the corners, but most of his plan worked. He had his pommel.
