The hammer came down upon the old anvil like the silence of a woman, something which Larkin Forgeheart knew all too well. Perhaps that was why he had invited the prostitute to stay with him this time as he slaved over the shapeless steel. His eyes were an electric blue from chugging mana potions and his face was beetroot from constantly hurling the hammer into the air like he was Thor. This time, however, the hammer seemed to crackle with lightning.

  “You see that?” cried the young man breathlessly.

  “It’s impossible. You’re going to be thrown out on the street again like every other orphan in Backwater,” said the girl from the doorway. “No one ever becomes anything in this place.”

  “Not true,” he replied, wiping the beads of sweat with his forearm. “All I have to do…” he added in between belts of the hammer, “is work really, really hard.” Despite the optimism in his voice, his face was a permanent scowl. The heat radiating out of the forge behind him intensified this frustration. Moreover, the blueprint she had brought him proved too difficult even for his master’s illustrious hammer.

  Mira too wiped her brow, and said, with equal amounts of frustration, “I’ve put my neck out for you.” She looked worried.

  Larkin narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “If you mean it cost you an arm and a leg, don’t worry. I’ll cover the cost for the blueprint when I make it big,” he said. Then he shot out his hand, and asked hurriedly, “Give me another mana potion.”

  Mira was half-in and half-out of the workshop. She looked as though she was about to reply with yet another crushing argument, but she simply sighed and gazed down the dirt road, her arms crossed and one foot resting against the doorframe she was leaning against. A heavy stench wafted right past her and into the workshop. Her face revealed nothing, however, for she had suffered much worse than the smell of shit.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Larkin, his forehead creased and dripping with perspiration. His hands trembled slightly as he hovered the hammer above the warm edges of the blade. He tapped it gently, but the metal did not flatten. It had gone cold. “Give me more mana, now,” he cried.

  “Your master’s going to be here any minute now,” she replied, tapping her foot against the rotted frame. “And so is the guy I stole it from,” she muttered as a gust of wind brushed past again.

  “That’s why I need you to start helping rather than just standing there watching,” said Larkin frustratedly. “Now, please give me another mana potion.” His outstretched hand trembled slightly. Instantly, he clasped it still with embarrassment. He looked down at the sword and frowned. “Why can’t I craft it?” he asked himself. His mind wandered back to the only memories he had of his childhood. His parents could have easily crafted such a weapon, no matter the level. If only they had not disappeared and left him all alone to fend for himself.

  “Nine wasn’t enough?” she said with a raised eyebrow, her voice laden with annoyance. “And I’m not a blacksmith, so what do you expect me to do?”

  “You can start by giving me some encouragement for once. If I’m going to craft this Eclipseris, I’ll need all the mana I can consume.”

  “Even if it puts you in a century-long coma?” she asked smugly. “You said that you could craft it.”

  Larkin glared at the woman. “I will be the best blacksmith in the realm,” he said. “They’ll have monuments of me for centuries to come all over the realm. You’ll see.”

  Mira laughed. She then rummaged through her satchel, pulling out a vial filled to the brim with shining blue liquid, and tossed it to him. “Chew on that,” she said.

  Larkin raised his hand sluggishly and caught it just barely with his fingertips. He drank it eagerly, wincing as it went through him like medicinal syrup. His eyes shone intensely.

  “You’ve been considering my proposal,” he said finally, returning to his craft. The self-doubt had left him now, replaced by the internal warmth of youthful confidence brought on by the potion. He looked down at the weapon before him and smiled ear to ear. “One day, I’ll create something worthy enough,” he thought as he pounded the blade’s edges.

  Mira glanced at Larkin, but didn’t say anything. The boy was still absorbed in his work. Her eyes darted about the dingy walls of the workshop before falling on the boy’s haggard appearance. She felt claustrophobic, and somehow dirtier than usual – which was saying something.

  “How can you have no clock?” she asked with a frown.

  Larkin did not hear her. Instead, he was too busy lost in his imagination. Every time he struck the ancient dark dwarven steel, a flicker of hope sprang up in his mind that one day he would be able to craft something nobody had ever crafted before, attain the fame that was necessary to get back what he had lost a long time ago; and that finally, he would be accepted into the Iron Guild, eventually even – he smiled even harder at this eventuality – the High Council. He would be able to repay his master then, too, for all the kindness he had bestowed upon him since losing those dearestdearests to him.

  The sudden change over the apprentice was not lost on the girl. “Downing mana potions can’t be good for you,” she said.

  “You brought me a blueprint nobody but a master craftsman could handle naked,” Larkin replied. “What choice do I have?”

  “’Naked’?”

  “Without potions,” he grimaced. He spun around with the cold steel sandwiched between the tongs and held it inside the fire until it glowed orange before setting it back down on the anvil. Now that he was using his master’s Emberclaw Tongs, his timing was impeccable. Haldar had once let it slip, during one of his drunken binges, that they were rumored to have been forged when the forge gods themselves walked the earth; and that a legendary blacksmith called Drennath Fireheart had crafted them. Larkin felt a sort of kinship with Drennath as he inspected the heated steel with pride.

  “You said that you could craft it! I wouldn’t have…obtained it otherwise,” she cried. “We should have stuck with nails,” she lamented.

  “Come on,” he said, hope in his voice, “it'sits time you left that life behind. You’re better than -” He gulped and turned away from her gaze, blushing. “Haldar has a reputation,” he said, “he has the means to find you a suitable apprenticeship in one of the guilds.”

  Larkin’s smile always had the mysterious effect of calming her down. She hated that. “You know, Larkin, I’m the only one in this garbage dump of a town who is willing to tolerate your grandiose dreams, but cross-contamination is something I won’t stand for, you know that; everyone knows that; the whole goddamn world knows that; and I sure as hell won’t stop thinking that ‘till the day we all die in the great awakening,” she said. “Now, hurry up,” she added anxiously.

  The hammer stopped and Larkin, drenched in sweat, lifted his weary head. “So, you’re willing to believe that humans can die but not that someone can actually make a name for themselves?” asked Larkin incredulously. His look was firm and serious.

  “Not a low-level apprentice.”

  “Well,” Larkin said, his eyes glued back to the anvil, “I know that my skills are… novice level-”

  “Beginner,” interrupted Mira.

  “I have the mana of two master craftsmen coursing through my veins!”

  “Since when?” asked Mira with amusement.

  “Since I was told that both of my grandfathers were members of the Iron Guild,” said Larkin, proudly.

  “Yeah, right,” Mira sneered. “If they were members of the most prestigious guild in the realm, where are they now, and why didn’t they take you with them?”

  “I don't know,” Larkin said, pulling his leather gloves tighter. “But I’ll find them one day. Just imagine me being able to craft legendaries!” he smiled ear to ear. “No more damn nails! I’ll finally be a weapons guy.” He glanced over in the corner, and said, keeping the same joviality, “I’ll even be able to buy Haldar a new workshop. It’s about time the old geezer upgraded; a millennia he’s been running this shop. Can you believe it?”

  “Stick to nails,” Mira smirked. “They are far more useful than whatever you call that,” she said quickly, pointing at the blob of steel in front of him. Suddenly, her nose crinkled, “I can’t believe you sleep in here. No one to keep you warm.”

  Larkin grunted. He let his concentration slip again and followed the girl’s eyes to the dark hole behind him, wherein a small flame flickered nastily upon a bundle of sticks. It was housed inside a small arc of sooty brick, which sat a crumbling chimney on top of it in the centre to carry out the smoke through the roof. “It’s running out already? But I’ve just fed it five minutes ago,” he whined exasperatedly.

  Since the workshop was so small, he was forced to use his bed as a second workbench. It helped that it was almost as rock hard as the anvil he slaved over day in and day out; and it also helped that its frame was practically touching the forge it was so close, especially considering how cold it got at night. He twisted, picked up the tiny logs and threw them into the fire, cursing himself afterwards for lifting with poor technique. His back ached as he wiped his sweaty, ashy brow with the one arm he could still feel was his own before he picked up the hammer again. To Larkin, a master-grade hammer did not look any different from its common counterpart, and yet it somehow weighed ten times as much. If it were not for the strength serums he had injected himself with earlier, the young man was sure his arm would have been torn off the moment he had tried to pull the Elder Hammer from Haldar’s workbench over in the corner. A hundred year coma was the least of his worries.

  Mira turned her attention to the empty shelves above his master’s anvil. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t those shelves supposed to contain something? Forget it, Larkin, you’re not cut out to be a crafter. Give me back the blueprint.”

  “I am so,” he said shakily. “The town’s just in a slump is all.”

  “This is like the fifth profession in ten years. Sooner or later you’ve got to realise that you’re cut from the same cloth as the rest of us,” she replied.

  “But I’ve been at this for four years,” he protested. His fingers gripped the hammer tighter.

  “And you’re only level four!”

  Larkin grimaced. The steel had gone cold again. He thrust it into the forge and it began to glow as crimson as the arm holding it. His face too was no paler, and he began to regret that Mira was there for he would have liked to have been naked, free from the constraints of the thick apron strapped to his torso and the itchy cotton shirt melted into his skin. He blushed as soon as the thought entered his head, but his face was already as red as faces could be, so he did not worry about being noticed.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The sight of the roughly formed blade, however, did little to alleviate his embarrassment. He had accidentally flattened the blade unevenly. If Haldar caught him now, he was not sure whether his master would be more upset at the unsanctioned craft or how badly he had attempted it. Overdosing on mana potions would be the least of his worries then.

  “What?” Mira asked with a frown.

  “Nothing,” Larkin said quickly, shaking his head. “Perhaps you could be an enchanter; their nails are just as pretty,” he mused, turning back to his work. The heat had gotten to him finally. “Come on, dang it,” he said as he banged the hammer on the red-hot steel edges of the blade. It was slowly transforming into what would resemble a sword to all but the most seasoned weapon experts – those being mostly craftsman.

  “I’m happy doing what I do!” she lied.

  The hammer rang out loudly, and one could not hear themselves think; perhaps that was why the street on which the blacksmith stood was always deserted. Increasingly frustrated with every swing, Larkin fought back the desire to give up. “What would my parents think of me if I stop now?” he thought. “They’d probably give me a history lesson. Something about the Eternal Forge – a place where the most powerful weapons were crafted… My destiny is there… it has to be!”

  At once, Larkin surveyed his workshop: the basic tools dulled by overuse, the piles of unfinished common weapons, and the secret stash of empty vials he had relied on to fool Haldar into thinking he was making progress, all seemed to be finally catching up to him. Glancing down beneath the cuff of his gloves, he saw the beginnings of mana-sickness. His skin was becoming paler despite the intense heat. His wrists looked almost like bone. “I can’t give up now,” flashed in his mind, “I am so close to crafting something legendary. Out of Backwater will emerge greatness!”

  Mira’s eyes widened, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she focused on the empty road, her brows furrowed in concentration, fighting back any displays of honest emotion. She always made an effort to wear a mask of indifference. For the last half-hour, she had searched her pockets desperately, pulling them inside out more than a hundred times. Her pimp had not paid her at all this week, and she was getting hungry. This job would net her a small fortune.

  Mira breathed deeply, forced a smile, and then laughed flirtatiously right on cue. “I’m good at what I do,” she explained. “And besides,” she admitted sheepishly, “this way I can get access to lucrative blueprints… Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I’m stealing from anyone that matters.” She shrugged, pondering the cult member she saw earlier, wondering if he would miss the contract more than her body. Her hands shook a little as she felt the yellow bruise on her neck. How could the older women do it?

  “I’ll prove you wrong, Mira,” Larkin said, his voice hoarse, “I’ll prove all of you wrong.”

  “You’re going to get yourself crippled for eternity,” Mira snapped, her face almost as red as his now. “Dear gods, how the hell can you work in this heat?” she said, pulling at her collar.

  “You get used to it,” said Larkin. “You would know if you took my offer.”

  “Enough!” she said, her tone sharper than the sword on the anvil. She glanced at the empty vials stashed in the corner cupboard, and added, hastily, “Besides, I don’t fancy the prospect of mana crashing.”

  “Even if my mana runs to zero, I don’t die. That would be a miracle, Mira, and according to you miracles don’t happen.”

  “Maybe if you owned a factory. I heard from one client that down south they’ve got machines that can do what you do but faster and cheaper.”

  “Magical machines? Impossible. Only crafters can imbue objects with mana; and only blacksmiths can build magical machines,” said Larkin, seemingly unphased by news. “Things must be good down there if they’re that desperate to put themselves out of work.”

  “All work’s taught me is that all men bullshit, and all men are bullshit,” she blurted. “The guilds won’t let anything supplant their power. It’s the only thing keeping them from being slaves like the rest of us…” Mira glanced at the older boy in embarrassment, “Curse you, Larkin. You’re the only boy in this crummy town to make me use my head.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” he chuckled.

  “It doesn’t pay to think,” she replied, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

  Larkin stole a glance, watching her puff on it with silent fascination.

  The rare gems beside his workstation sparkled brilliantly. “How did you get this contract, and the materials needed for it anyway?” he said, giddily. Like a young child, Larkin’s mood could change instantly, especially in the presence of a beautiful girl.

  The young woman stepped out onto the road, spinning around slowly, and threw her small pale arms into the air in frustration. Even though the sun hung overhead like a giant spotlight, it wasn’t nearly as hot as it was in the workshop. She was still close enough to hear Larkin, however, and keep him within her line of sight. Her life depended on it.

  “I meet all kinds of people in my line of work,” she said absentmindedly, “you know the types…” She now stood in the centre of the dusty road with her hand on her shapely hips.

  “I don’t,” Larkin frowned, trying not to stare at her for too long. “Get a grip,” he muttered as he concentrated on hammering the edges of the hottened blade. After all the edges were evenly tempered, he brought the sword over to the large grinding wheel sitting in Haldar’s corner; he sat down on the stool attached to its wooden frame and began to refine the blade. Watching the edges gradually become perfect against the sandstone never failed to satisfy Larkin. But this time he had company, and he was acting against Haldar’s explicit orders not to work unsupervised or on items higher than his level. “If I don’t craft this, I’ll be a no-name smith for the next five decades,” he thought.

  “Always the good boy,” she retorted out of habit.

  “I’m older than you!” he cried. He laid aside his hammer and placed both of his hands on the edges of the anvil, glaring at the prostitute.

  His chest tightened all of a sudden. He stumbled and fell upon the anvil, catching his breath. He glanced at the empty vial on his bed. “Dammit,” he winced.

  Mira burst out into a quiet laughter, covering her mouth with her hand. “You’re not normal,” she blurted after a moment’s hesitation.

  “If normal means accepting the role other people have given you,” Larkin said, “then you’d be right.” He held up the sword to the sunlight pouring in from the front of the workshop, inspecting it carefully. “It’s not giving me any experience points,” he frowned.

  “It’s done?” Mira asked.

  Mira was about to respond with a clever quip when she saw a black dot on the horizon. She quickly placed a hand to her breast and walked quickly back inside the workstation, her face suddenly pale. “Listen, Larkin,” she began with a quivering voice.

  “No, you listen here, Mira,” interrupted the young man confidently, pointing his finger in her face, “you don’t know what it’s like to work day in and day out for virtually no reward, having everyone laughing at you behind your back because you’re doing something they don’t agree with-”

  “Larkin!”

  “No, Mira,” he said haughtily, “I’m not being talked down to by a girl like-”

  A tall man appeared behind the frightened girl. He was dressed head to toe in a black robe, which seemed to suck in the heavy sunlight for there seemed no edge, no curve, no shape to him that would distinguish his figure as belonging to a man and not a shadow; his face was obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, so that only the purple gleam of his eyes could be seen. He stepped into the workshop, surveying the entire space with cold and calculating precision. Larkin looked up in surprise.

  “Where is the blueprint?” the man demanded angrily. He noted the furnace behind the shopkeeper

  His eyes jerked to the young girl behind him. “Ah,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “You’re the woman who cost my lackey his life.”

  Immediately, Mira looked decades older. Her eyes looked like an old lady’s spectacles, and her skin, like Larkin, had become ghastly pale. She stepped backwards into the frame with halted breath as though she would sink into it. She looked like a mouse. “Your wrong,” she managed.

  “This isn’t the whorehouse,” the stranger said amusedly.

  “W-who are you?” Mira stammered.

  Malcaver stepped closer and touched her cheek. “No wonder his eyes weren’t on the ball,” he grinned.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she said quietly, turning her head away.

  “You don’t have any rights here,” Malcavar whispered. “That blueprint you stole – it’s very important to me.”

  “P-Please,” she stuttered.

  Larkin, gripping the hammer tightly, straightened and made his way slowly around the anvil. The hairs on Malcavar’s neck stood up immediately, and his hand shot to the dagger on his waist. But since he was like a shadow, this movement was hidden from the two children.

  The intruder frowned, and asked, “You don’t intend to use a hammer, do you?” He turned slowly to face the young blacksmith, noticing the electricity in his eyes. “You wouldn’t even put a dent in my plans with that,” he chuckled darkly.

  “Who are you?” Larkin demanded. With great effort, he held the hammer pointedly. It sparked a little.

  “How cute,” he added, his tone rife with condescension. “Well, since I’m going to kill you two, I don’t see why the need to be discreet… I’m High Smith of the Cult of the Obsidian,” he said proudly, “and what she stole was in the possession of a… an ex-employee of mine. It’s rather sensitive: for my eyes only, capiche?”

  Larkin’s eyes flickered to the girl and then back to the stranger. “We don’t have what you want,” the boy said. “Get out.”

  “Your defiance is irritating, and yet simultaneously demanding of my respect,” he said in amusement. “It reminds me of when I was young and chock full of ambition.” Malcavar paused for a moment in consideration; then, raising his arm to just above his waistline, he slowly placed his right hand over his left fist. Without warning, he hammered his elbow into the girl’s gut.

  Blood spurted out from behind the grinning Malcavar, followed by a thud. Larkin lunged forward, swinging the electrified hammer in a rage.

  Malcavar’s gaze hardened as he muttered an incantation under his breath. Suddenly, the fire behind Larkin choked and spluttered into nothingness, and the room was thrown into darkness as though it was night. He stopped short, his arms falling to his side like a sack of iron nails. His jaw dropped.

  “B-but how?” he blurted, stumbling back into the anvil.

  Malcavar noted the apprehension in the boy’s eyes and stepped forward with a smile. He raised his gloved hand and began to speak another incantation. A dark ball of white-specked matter whirled in his palm, growing larger by the second until it was the size of Larkin’s head. Larkin paused, breathless, his face white as the specks that danced before his eyes. Every instinct within the boy screamed at him to run, but something rooted him to the spot. Was it fear? Was it that the man commanded magic without an enchanted weapon? Or was it Mira? No. He knew the reason. He knew it very well.

  “No one’s ever died in Blackwater,” Malcavar said, “Care to be the first?”

  Malcavar saw Larkin’s hand shoot across the anvil to what he supposed was a blade, though he could not take his eyes off his target while channeling mana, and said, “Now, that thing would probably hurt. But this right here will kill you: it’ll suck up all the mana in your blood ‘till there’s nothing left; then it’ll suck up some more ‘till you’re thirsting for it, ‘till your nothing but a crusty ol’ corpse. Sure, you aren’t dead like the ancients, but you’ll be as good as ‘em. What’s a crafter in Backwater without mana?”

  Larkin’s hands curled around the hilt of the Eclipseris. He would have gladly returned the blueprint to save both their skins were it not for the fact that once a craftsman starts a project the respective blueprint is immediately consumed. His heart thumped in his chest, yet he did not feel as afraid as he reckoned he should have been under the circumstances. The excess mana still surged in his system.

  “You’re out of your depth,” Malcavar said coldly. “I know you haven’t dared to craft it by yourself. So where is it? That blueprint was never meant to be seen by anyone outside the Obsidian. It’s the key to finding the Eternal Forge, the only thing capable of defeating the High Council.”

  The workshop seemed to warp and bend around Larkin. His back suddenly seemed to carry an impossible weight as though the ceiling had collapsed upon him. He lay sprawled across the anvil like a squashed ant under the menacing eye of the High Smith and his cruel smile. Every rise of his chest, every labored breath, was excruciating.

  “Why is your mana capacity so high?”

  The dark aura enveloping the workshop slowly suffocated the apprentice. He felt his pores open, and the mana sucked out of him as if, all at once, a thousand hypodermic needles were plunged into his skin. Larkin let go of the hilt and fell to his knees.

  The Eclipseris rattled before settling on the iron; but it was the blue glint of its dark ancient metal that finally caught the High Smith’s attention. He stopped channeling his spell to run his hand along the blade’s edge. His finger opened at the slightest touch, and he felt some of his lifeforce trickle out of him. He pulled away quickly.

  “Whatever the cost, I’ll wake everyone up,” he murmured. “Needs a good polish,” he added. He grabbed the sword and headed towards the exit, passing Mira without so much as a glance.

  The workshop brightened back to normal. Larkin fainted