The smithy was far smaller than Grandpa’s cramped old shack. Aang had filled the whole room with tools and equipment, making clever use of the lacking space. Hammers and tools were hanging from the ceiling with rope. The anvil had a hole between its feet, and Aang had crammed an ingot of adamantite in between. The smithy was more cramped than Gaven’s kitchen.

  It was beautiful. Vivi studied everything around her in awe. There was a small emberstone forge as well as a portable crucible furnace and three crucibles of different sizes. A vise, as she had asked, and a stool. A shelf on the back wall was lined with ether roots of all kinds. Most were common roots—green mithril, white obsidian, iron—but one particularly shiny root caught Vivi’s breath.

  A locium root. The same metal that Andre’s mining team was fond of hunting. In metal form, locium was useless for runesmithing. As an ether root, however, locium had one property that made it best in its category. Unstable locium conducted ether at an incredibly fast rate, making it the best root for swiftness runes. Locium roots were rare; Grandpa had never worked with one even once even when Ellandor had specifically requested a locium root. Shaping locium veins was as difficult as it was costly. If Grandpa bought a locium root and made an error shaping it, the smithy could have fallen bankrupt from that failure alone.

  Aang stepped beside Vivi. “I hope I gathered everything you requested. I tried to leave enough space to swing a hammer around the anvil. If something is amiss, please tell me.”

  Vivi was too busy gawking to thank him. She had her own smithy now. A beautiful one, hidden away from the world in a quiet corner of the hidden dungeon.

  “You even found black aspen!” Vivi gushed, seeing a branch of dark wood in the corner of the smithy. She rushed over and smelled the tree. The scent almost made her tear up. The coal-like smell of black aspen was always stuck to her fingers back home. She’d been bullied for it many times. The scent of black aspen was as homely as the scent of Grandpa’s old bloomer furnace.

  “If there is anything my members require, I will get that arranged,” Aang said with a smile. “The aspen had to be brought in from outside the facility. Arranging it was a hassle, but Grenall got it in.”

  “Thank you so much,” Vivi said.

  “I didn’t do this for free,” Aang said. “In return, I expect to see results.”

  “Thank you for allowing me to work,” Vivi said, correcting herself.

  “And I want to see how your damned swords are made,” Rensfig said. He stepped past Aang. The three of them barely fit into the smithy. With Rensifg inside, Vivi would have just enough space to use the anvil.

  “Tell me your desired shape, metal, and runes, and I will get to work,” Vivi said. “The first swords will be free as thanks for building the smithy.”

  “The sword might one day be used to fight Stewards,” Aang said. “Uundref and Wheryn are our most likely opponents, as they reside within Zand at all hours. In terms of fighting styles, the two are complete opposites. Uundref is a stealth assassin, while Wheryn is a defensive tank.”

  “We will need a runesword to pierce strong defenses, then, and a swiftness sword to deal with Uundref’s speed,” Vivi said.

  “Piercing Wheryn’s defensive barrier will be close to impossible,” Aang said. “He wields a rare skill. ‘Impenetrable Iron.’ The skill turns his skin into ether-powered metal. Our best bet is to outmaneuver him with speed. Wheryn is not fast.”

  Wheryn was that bulky demon wearing a tank top, right? Vivi thought. She had caught a glimpse of the Steward during collection day. Wheryn’s proportions were on the more extreme side, but he was otherwise a regular demon. His ether aura had been inactive during collection day, but he didn’t look all too scary among the seven Stewards present. Vivi would need to see him in combat to know how to truly counter his powers.

  “There is also another opponent we need to defeat,” Aang said. “The Elder Gnoll.”

  “Elder Gnoll?” Vivi asked.

  “The boss of the gnoll mineshaft,” Aang said. “Four of the five squadron bosses are easy. The Hollows can defeat them without issues even with our current equipment. The Elder Gnoll, however, is on another level. The only time a member of the Hollows has died in a boss hunt was during a battle against the Elder Gnoll. Ever since then, we’ve chosen other bosses.”

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  “Wow,” Lucius said. “There’s an Elder Gnoll down here? That’s a high-tier boss.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Aang said. “The Stewards require every member to take it down. I said we would be taking down all bosses this cycle, but for the Elder Gnoll, your runeswords are the deciding factor. With every member equipped with inside-carved runeswords, we will stand a chance.”

  “I will see what I can do,” Vivi said. “First, I will carve a replacement runesword for Rohan, and a new adamantite katana to fight Uundref. As for the Elder Gnoll…”

  “The Elder Gnoll is not a specialized monster,” Aang said. “It’s fast, and it’s incredibly strong, usually wielding an aura of at least fifteen thousand ether. I doubt it can be countered with a specific rune combination. I simply need you to carve the best runeswords you can.”

  “Every monster can be countered by specific rune combinations,” Vivi said. “Rensfig, you can stay as my assistant. I will not need help for most steps, but it’s good to have an assistant for the last few steps.”

  “I’m not leaving even if you tell me to,” Rensfig said. “I will learn the secrets of inside carving.”

  Vivi nodded. “I will reveal them. Just don’t be disappointed if it takes you a few years to replicate my methods.”

  “Heh,” Rensfig said. He stood in the corner of the room, where he had a good view of Vivi’s workstation. “Start it, you cocky witch.”

  Aang nodded. “I have left water and bread on the shelf. You have three days to work until collection day will call for a break. We will assess your progress then.”

  Three days to work? Vivi grinned. Finally, Aang told her what she wanted to hear. She had a beautiful smithy, food and water, tens of ether roots, beautiful metals, as well as access to all of Rensfig’s carving knives and runesmithing equipment. What else could she ask for?

  She bowed and thanked Aang again. The gang leader closed the door, leaving Vivi alone with Rensfig.

  “Well, then,” she said. “Two swords. And I’d like a third one for myself. Let’s get to work.”

  Rensfig stayed silent, watching. He looked as if he expected to learn a secret of the gods.

  Vivi ignored him and picked up the branch of black aspen. Today, she intended to carve proper veins for her runeswords. Not the simple single-runed branches she’d carved for her first runesword. Three days was plenty of time for some good preparations.

  Lucius, heat the forge to twelve hundred, Vivi thought. That’s the melting point for black aspen. You know how this works.

  “Got it,” Lucius said. Vivi sensed slight excitement from him as well. Lucius was curious about what Vivi was going to create next.

  She cut off a suitable stick of black aspen and placed it into the forge. The aspen heated up quickly. Despite black aspen being wood, it withstood heat and a hammer surprisingly well. This was thanks to its crystalline atom structure, similar to most metals. Black aspen would work perfectly for what she intended to craft.

  Vivi placed the heated-up aspen on the anvil and started hammering. She hit softly to keep the circular shape. Slowly, the aspen started to take the shape of a smooth stick.

  “I don’t understand,” Rensfig said. “What does this have to do with runesmithing?”

  “We’re not runesmithing yet,” Vivi said. “I’m creating a tool.”

  “I see,” Rensfig said. He sounded disappointed. “And what tool are you creating?”

  “Just a simple crocheting hook,” Vivi said. “You’ll see. A tuning fork is far too clumsy to shape anything intricate. Crochet hooks are essential for shaping veins. I plan on creating real products today.”

  “I would ask you what shaping veins means, but I’m guessing you will tell me to wait and see.”

  “Yes,” Vivi said with a grin. “You will understand once you see the process.”

  She spent the next half an hour hammering the aspen stick and another fifteen twisting the tip into the desired shape. By the end, Vivi was quite happy with the results.

  The end of her stick was crooked, exactly like a grandma’s crochet hook. Vivi’s creation was slightly larger and stronger, and the mouth of the hook was far more bowl-like, but the tool was essentially the same thing. Black aspen crochet hooks, combined with a knife, were Vivi’s preferred tools for vein shaping.

  With the crochet hook completed, Vivi stretched, then picked up an ether root. “For the first sword,” Vivi said. “Let’s replace Rohan’s sword.”

  “Asmite and a swiftness rune?” Rensfig asked.

  Vivi thought for a second. “Rohan wields heavy swords, but forging asmite is a pain. I’d require hours upon hours to get the shape right. Blacksmithing alone will leave me tired. I’d like to preserve energy for other projects. It’s going to be easier to forge a lighter metal that’s powered by a mass rune. The feel of the sword will be similar, but the smithing process will be far less intensive.”

  “Rohan likes his asmite blades,” Rensfig said. “Black Rose was a nightmare to carve. I understand where you’re coming from.”

  “We will carve a simple green mithril sword,” Vivi said. “Green is a low-tier mithril, but it’s still a solid light metal. For the ether root, we will use iron.”

  Iron roots sounded and appeared boring. Mentioning iron certainly didn’t spark interest from Lucius. It was true that iron’s conductivity was slow. It could take multiple seconds to fill iron veins with ether. But when iron veins did get filled, they allowed for a seriously powerful current of ether. Iron was one of the better roots in terms of capacity.

  Iron roots were also seriously stubborn to guide into shape. Vivi twisted the root between the jaws of her vise, then prepared herself for the first arduous job of the day.

  “You said you required six weeks to carve Black Rose, correct?” Vivi asked.

  “Yes,” Rensfig said. “Six weeks and some spare days here and there. Asmite is stubborn enough that I could carve, at most, an inch into its surface each day.”

  A smile crept onto Vivi’s cheeks. “I won’t need as long. Give me five hours. Rohan’s new sword will be ready by the time the first monsters respawn.”

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