Chapter 3: Spying

Back in a smithy of Clayton. Allan was hammering down a long piece of bright red-colored metal. Thousands of times, which compressed scorching hot metal. It gradually took the shape of a straight blade. Some moments, he had to reheat it in a furnace, for the softness of the metal to return. He still lacked the physical strength to finish it fast enough, but with the number of hits and time that he used, it was enough. He tossed the finished sword into a cylinder-shaped barrel, made of a sheet of tin. Inside was an unknown liquid resembling oil.

After a while. It cooled off a little. He carefully laid it on the table of hardened stone. This process was called normalization by his father. He described it as hardening the softness of the hot metal. Taking the right shape so it will stay through to its straighness.

“Finally!”

“I finished it after such a long time.” Allan, looking at the metallic sword, said in satisfaction. Sword is a success. No spots which could cause fractures were visible, and the blade was straight. Keeping the blade, for the time being, he decided to finish the rest tomorrow. It only involved crafting the handle and sharpening the blade itself. That was done in a matter of less than an hour.

After leaving the Lonely Tiger pub. He was in no mood for further celebration. There wasn’t even much to celebrate. Meeting Tim Timber left him with a sore spot in mind. He made some of his custom blades with plans prepared a long time ago. It was the longest blade that he ever made. Roughly 1 meter long. It made quite a work to pull it off. It surprised Allan that he made it with little trouble. Apart from time and repeating hits of a hammer. It left him drained in sweat and sore back, shoulders, and arms.

“I will do nothing until next day afternoon.” Allan decided. He put away his leather attire, closed the lid of the furnace, and left for the bathroom. Allan lay motionless in a barrel of hot water, which was heated by residual heat from the furnace. His father designed it to cut some work and no need to wait for the hot water was great. Clayton could even make some patents for this technique. Yet, how many people have furnaces sized for forging?

He rested his body in the barrel, while energy returned to his body. It was already night by the time he entered and suddenly some noise from the first floor entered his ears. Getting up. Some scars and burned marks were visible on his shoulders and hands. Those were the risks of being a young blacksmith. The main door to a shop opened. Clayton was back from his contractual work from mister Boris Timber. On his shoulder was a burly leather bag that was almost as big as him. Sticking from it were some unknown weapons. He glanced at his shop. Seeing an unfamiliar long piece of a metallic sword that still radiated heat on a table. He couldn't help but nod in approval.

“Seems like brat did not fool around this time. Finally, something decent. I look forward towards his finished sword.” He turned around as Allan came into his view. Water still dripping from his clothes.

“I almost fell asleep in a bathtub.” He said in excuse. Glancing at his father.

“Can you prepare another one for me or is water no longer hot?.” Clayton asked.

“It is still hot. I let the furnace hot for the entire afternoon and part of the night.” Allan answered. I will prepare it.

“Was everything fine with mister Boris and your work?”

“Pretty much.”

“Although he looked a little nervous, for some reason. I was not there alone. Almost all the best blacksmiths are there along with adventures and mercenaries. Some military stuff, I guess.” Allan nodded. “Military?” He thought.

Exchanging the barrel with some fresh hot water was an easy job. Connected by hollow wooden pipes, water could flow out and fresh one would come instead. It connected the pipes to a big wooden tank on a hill close to a house. Clayton built all of it over the years. The price for his house now would be staggering if he bought it now. He would not be able to afford it. Allan went downstairs. Seeing his father put his luggage away.

“Water is prepared, father.”

“Thank you.”

As he was already there, he went to the desk by a side. Earlier, he took his new book from his stash. First order of mixing facing up. Illuminated by an oil lamp, he started to read.

It was a little more complicated compilation of merging pieces of metal into one. It depicted some scribbles and how some metals interacted with each other. Some had different points of melting than others. Allan frowned. “It is rather complicated. Without some experiments, I won’t know the outcome if important earlier pages are missing.”

He continued to read. Reaching halfway through the book. Inconsistencies made it chaotic. There were even some names and techniques which he never heard of. Including some names for ores and some other ingredients. It went quickly because the text was not too densely packed together. “It looks like an introductory technique for some forging technique.” Allan assumed, after putting the book away.

“First order means there are more, right? I will ask father about it in a few days.”

Allan suddenly remembered. “Bag who father had before.”

As he was looking around. Checking every corner of the room. It was gone. He couldn’t find it. For such a big bag to disappear… “He hides it somewhere. Upstairs is safe to assume, as he did not come there. But he probably knew the truth already.” Allan laughed in silence.

“Alright, tonight is it then?”

He went to his bed on the second floor. He saw his father still in the barrel, which was a little tight for him. Staring at the ceiling, his thoughts unfocused.

“Goodnight, father.” Allan said, leaning from a corner. It was not even midnight, yet his eyes were wide open with excitement.

Sometime later. Allan heard clutter as his father was finished with a bath and going downstairs. Getting up, he put on his regular, warmer clothes and took 5 items from his stash. Book, quill, bottle with ink, binoculars, and rope.

He jumped from the window. In his hand, rope for a climb up. It was quite high. Two moons were hanging around above. He did not need a lantern for what he was about to do. With those two, it was clearer, and Allan still could read if he was close enough to a book. Allan went around his house, facing the back wall. There was some garbage around. Under the shelter of the warehouse, big piles of wood and charcoal are scattered around. Those were meant for furnaces. They did not keep them in the best condition, but for storage, so it was enough.

“Quietly, quietly.” Allan thought. He jumped up to look at the window by a side. It was his father's room. It was empty of his presence. “Great.” Allan mumbled happily.

He got down and on his knees made way towards bushes that were lining walls all around this side. He crawled for a bit and pushed a wooden plank away. A little window came into his view. It was broken, hidden behind bushes. It was nearly impossible for someone to find it. Allan, by a mistake while getting firewood, tripped and found it hidden behind a plank a few years ago.

Inside was a big room resembling a forgery, like the one upstairs, but with more shelves and a single big furnace. On armored shelves were all kinds of ores, metals, ingots, crystals, and wood in various colors. It was slightly glowing inside as there was no source of light apart from dancing flames in a big furnace. In the left corner were pairs of tables with piles of documents and some bookshelves.

Allan waited. His father is not in a room. After a while, from another room that was not visible to Allan, Clayton emerged with his bag. He had stored it somewhere else, with other rooms, being the most likely scenario.

“What are you playing with this time?” Allan asked himself in his mind. He opened his book. It neatly organized dates and years with information about what his father worked on. Allan came up with it, since remembering it was not a good idea. This hidden smithy of his father was something he did not share with his son. Allan came to the conclusion that the reason for purchasing this house 9 years ago was these rooms. The shop above was a facade. It made for a secret base, which no one knew.

Clayton placed the content of his bag in the middle. There was huge wide rectangular steel plated table. Wide variety of blades and swords up to 2 meters in length. The window that Allan looked through was located above some shelves. In direct view of tables, furnace, and office space in a corner.

“These are high-ranking officer swords. I recognize some of them as ones forged on that big furnace.” Allan observed. He wrote important pieces of information in his diary. Dated by 31 544th year, 40th day of spring at deep night.

He sketched some swords and their designs for further research in the past. The main reasons for Allan's deep affection for learning stemmed from the fact of this precise moment. Spying on his father for about 3 years was quite a bit. He loved doing what he shouldn’t be doing and some thrill on the side.

Allan recently came to another conclusion. There was no malice in this hidden way his father did things. He was too young to help him or had some impact on work progression. But knowledge was something he wanted, so he felt no remorse by slowly learning about it. Styles of blades, swords, and forging methods were personally done by his father in this room. They were nothing like the regular work in the shop above. Allan could see the differences, after a few years of spying.

1 year ago, Allan finally purchased binoculars from an indebted sailor. It greatly enhanced his spying skill. Within this time frame. He copied the most visible documents and scripts. Even some pages from books that Clayton read on some occasion were left in his diary.

All of this knowledge was good for him. Allan improved. But there was no way to turn most of this knowledge into a practical way. Best way to describe it so to have the biggest piece of beef shoulders or ribs you could buy, but only some small stove. You can try to cut it into smaller and manageable pieces, but you will be hungry soon. Eating it raw was also unhealthy.

Allan could only wait patiently for his father to acknowledge his work. It could take years for him to grow up so he could bear the impact of higher grades of hammers and metals.

“Sword quality from today is at the level of officers from the main Waan armies. The problem can lie in these sheens and oily substances that the father is keeping in drawers. Or, it is that mixing of metals that is described in many documents? I know about it myself, after all, but the word mixing was never stated anywhere. He even got me that first order of mixing book today.”

Allan knew for a fact that he played dumb when he received that book today. Not that he had seen it before. No. Its content was not all that surprising to him. He decided to play a little with himself when he received it from Clayton. All of this stemmed from the time he spent looking at his father in this forge. Forging sometimes unknown weapons from materials he had never seen before. Strange and mysterious effects could occasionally happen. Such as the glow of materials or strange-looking sounds. Situations from hammering and heating could produce it even with normal materials.