Chapter 38 – Home invasion.

Roland closed the door behind him after he entered his workshop. On the inside, there were many tools hung up on the walls. Using his new class he had cleaned up the place and even set up some shelves.

He started segregating every resource he had like iron, bronze, and copper. Even during his work, he was sure to even pick up the metal shavings. He had a working smelter which he could use to melt these leftover metals into ingots. He also was thinking about making clay molds. With them, he was planning to make his first sword from bronze.

This would hasten the process by quite a bit as he wouldn’t need to hammer it into shape that much. He already had spent some time practicing his craft but he had only reached the second level of his Blacksmith class. This was already showing him that he would be spending a lot more time with this third one.

Only after this, he would finally be getting into the tier 2 smith territory. He wasn’t sure if there would be a prestige class waiting for him then. He had to level up his runecrafting and all the smithing related skills to the maximum before the job class quest, to be sure.

All of those smithing skills that he received, runecraft included were at level 2 now. He could already feel that he was getting better at his new craft. The strain that runecrafting put on him was slightly lower now. He still needed to go through all of his mana to finish a lesser rune within a day though.

This was when working with a soft material like bronze. Iron would double or triple the time spent and one of the rare metals would make it impossible. The basic runecrafting skill had its limit and the larger the size of the metal the longer it took. Inscribing the traces wasn’t that easy and they had to be placed through most of the weapon.

He placed the two paddle-like wands on his workbench and glanced at them. There was a reason he made them like this. Due to his runecraft skill being so low he couldn’t compress the runes as much. His creations had to be large just for the entire rune to fit in. He had decided on the mana bolt spell as it was the smallest one from his repertoire.

With his high mana pool and his Runic mastery that was lowering the casting costs, this weapon was very usable. He wanted to move on to the next step and inscribe a common rune but there was a problem. First, a common rune was many times harder to make, he would probably need from four days to a week for it.

The second problem was the size. He barely got the lesser mana bolt on this large paddle shape mass of bronze. He calculated that if he wanted to create a similar weapon while keeping the shape he would end up with something like a tennis racket instead. It would be made from bronze or iron and the balance would be a real problem. He could try to make the handle from wood but then another problem arose.

Mixing two different materials with each other and connecting runic pathways through those. It was somewhat easy to scribe a rune on one large piece of metal. The traces flowed into each other without a hitch. But even adding a wooden handle or cloth on top would make things difficult. There just needed to be direct contact, the mana a person injected into the item dissipated really fast unless you had the runic pathways close by.

The only way he had to go around this was somehow riveting the parts together while not using the wood as part of the rune. Wood was also a lot worse for runecrafting as it just didn’t cope with the mana pathways well. You needed certain magical wood for something like that, which made runic bows a lot more costly and harder to make.

Roland thought that there had to be some kind of way to connect armor and weapon parts with each other. Even some swords had a hilt, pommel, and guard that were inserted separately. There had to be some kind of way to connect these parts without them having to be one solid piece of metal.

There might have been a skill that a tier 2 runesmith achieved or one that could be learned from a skill book. He would need to go ask around or buy some information later. For now, he had to repair his magical paddles. He started up the forge with the help of his ember spell and some coal.

This coal had a high enough temperature to work with bronze and iron. If he wanted to move over to the better magical metals he would need a better fuel source. This also meant that he could work with regular steel in the future with this basic forging equipment.

There was a version of iron ore that had absorbed mana called ‘Deep Iron’. It was found deep inside the earth closer to its core and gave runic equipment more spell usage. You could make ‘Black Steel’ from it that improved upon its qualities even more. This was one of the better metals that wasn’t all that pricey. It was cheaper than Mirthil, that material was mostly used by people of tier 3 and above. They were mostly the only ones rich enough to afford something like that.

There was also a limit on the materials. Common bronze wouldn’t be able to contain a grand rune structure. The mana required to craft it would burn through the metal making the pathways unusable. Even if a runesmith inscribed them, a weapon like that would probably only last once before melting. This was also a reason why he decided to go with lesser runes for now.

He used tongs to slowly heat up the metal before placing it back onto the anvil. He grasped one of the hammers and infused his mana into it. He then started slowly hammering the magical weapon, with each hit parts of the runic inscriptions were reconstructed back into their previous shape.

Before going to the other paddle he looked at the blacksmith’s hammer that he was using. There was a frown on his face as this item was also wearing down really fast. Rune smithing worked by forcing mana into the smith’s hammer. This would slowly damage the integrity of the tool and with time the metal would start crumbling.

The hammer he was using was a new one that he created himself. Making your own smithing tools was good training but the products that he was making were barely passable. This was a lot harder than scribing that mostly only required good mana control. His high dexterity aided him slightly with the creation process but his low strength was holding him back. He ran out of stamina fast and his hands began shaking if he hammered for too long.

Just like now, his stamina was drained but he managed to repair his magical weapon. Luckily stamina recovered a lot faster than mana did so after five or ten minutes he was ready to go. The clinging sounds continued into the night and Roland had to speed this up as his neighbors would come complaining again if he continued for much longer.

While the youth was working on his weapons and items the rest of the city was silent. After dark, most of the people were either drinking in a tavern or back home resting. There was another type of person out now though, the type that a regular citizen feared to cross paths with.

They were all wearing cloth armor along with some hardened leather here and there. Their faces were covered by hoods and they had masks hiding their mouths. Everyone here had the class of thief and could move silently in the night. They moved quietly while evading the guards that weren’t really paying that much attention to their tasks.

The city was large and there weren’t that many soldiers. The city lord mostly used his men to protect the richer districts, this left places like Southtown unprotected. This district was where the lower-income commoners lived and also where the city slums were. Most city guards didn’t wonder here much unless they got ordered by the higher-ups.

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These four men were slowly making their way there, they were members of the thieves guild. This was a hidden organization that most of the larger cities had. The people that were members of it took on jobs that the adventurer’s guild deemed unethical or just too dangerous. Some members were even adventurers themselves, working in both guilds at the same time.

There were various requirements for getting into this guild but one of the main ones was having a thievery-related class. This was either a thief or a bandit class which showed the guild masters that you were one of them.

They arrived just in time to hear Roland hammering on some metal. It was about 9 pm at night, the four spread out to examine the warehouse while keeping themselves hidden. They had to see all the entrance and escape points that this old building had before deciding on the course of action.

After they were finished they moved back into the shadows to discuss further actions.

“Large door at the front, locked from the inside. Probably won’t just go down easy.”

“Windows behind are closed but just wood and flimsy locks…”