“AHHHHH!!!” The familiar sound of a bell ringing was drowned out by the annoyed shout of a man. The booming yell echoed through the underground library and bounced off the walls for almost a solid minute because of its ferocity, but that shout wasn’t all that echoed into the halls. No, it wasn’t the end. The man whom had yelled stood in the center of a pile of books which had fallen off their shelves. They had fallen because of the bell, which did its job of ringing through the ceiling as to alert the occupants of the underground Library of a new presence. The man in the pile of books was not ready to hear that sound, and it had actually frightened him. In doing so, he jumped off his ladder and smacked into the bookcase behind him, causing a mountain of literature to assault him. This upset him, to say the least, as he now had to put everything back.
“WHY?!” The angered librarian shouted into the air once again and forced the books out of his path, kicking them as he marched through the pile. It didn’t take a lot of effort to get out, but he still used a lot of it. Fumes and steam leaked from his ears as his face turned into a bright red color. Fury filled his mind and he considered burning the library to the ground. However, his threat was empty. This place was filled with far too much knowledge for him to just throw away and he honestly didn’t have to guts to do it even if he wanted to. This place was technically his home away from home, and it was the first place in this game which provided him with a sort of sanctuary. Yet, maintaining it was sometimes quite annoying. It was a massive place and Saber honestly thought it was expanding whenever he left. He wouldn’t put it past the Library either. There were magical things down here, things which he could not see but believed existed for he had felt the winds, the breezes, and heard the voices, and strangely; he felt welcome here.
As Saber began to put the books back on the shelves, he began to hum. He was comfortable here and the air was generally very warm even though he was so far underground. Never once did he walk through the front door and feel cold chills or have some invisible ghost slash at him. No, he only felt the gentle grazes of heat and guidance which led him to the information he sought out. Here, Saber thought out loud and had no qualms with speaking unlike when he was with other people. He did this because he knew that the quiet souls which continued to walk the halls around him were willing to help him, and they did so very subtly. Whenever Saber had a question, he would whisper it and somewhere, a book would fall or a knock would echo. When he didn’t understand a book, he would set it down and leave. When he would return, the pages would be turned and the answer would be there, in the text. Here, Saber was welcome because he did not tamper with the world he was a part of. He was young, curious, and let his mind wander, and the invisible beings around him were very quietly guiding him to enlightenment. In exchange, Saber kept their home tidy. He cleaned up after himself, kept his voice down (for the most part), and kept his presence as small as possible. He was a guest here, and he would not intrude on their hospitality.
Once all of the books he had knocked off were back in their original spots, Saber sighed and hung his head. One job was done, but now he had another. Someone had caused that bell to ring and it was time to investigate why. Inside, Saber knew why; they needed something from him. Obviously that something was either a weapon or a piece of armor, as that was the only reason people actually showed up in his little hut of a building. But he didn’t mind, blacksmithing was his trade and the man secretly took pride in his ability to create such things. He never told anyone his craft, nor did he reveal that he ran the Funeral Parlor, but he still took care to create every weapon with the deepest love for them. The things which came out of his forge were like his children. Children of war they were, and he knew that they would make him proud. Whether the weapons and armor he made were his own or not, Saber made sure that his crafts were perfection.
This craft would be no different. Just like the many others before hand, Saber lit his furnace and brought his small forge to life. Without even looking at the craft, he already knew what materials he would need and began to gather them. Saber would need metal, his hammer, tongs, and cloth. His choice of metal was iron, as it was durable and could be mended easily once heated to a certain temperature. That temperature was a blazing high number, and it made the Blacksmith sweat even with his class’s passive skill. Still, he kept on with his work because people needed to protect themselves in this game, and the equipment a person had could mean the difference between life and death. The higher the quality of the piece of equipment, the better it would do in battle. A few drops of sweat on Saber’s end was a good trade for someone’s life.
As his work area came to life and his furnace slowly built up its internal temperature, the Blacksmith took the time to head topside. Making his way through the library and up the stairs, the man moved the stone wall door and stepped out from his secret entrance. The small room greeted him as it always did; with a warm homey feel and the sound of a fire popping. Saber nodded to himself and made his way over to the pair of books on the desk he had placed. There, he saw the new entry. The request this time was a very simple one. A person who went by the name of Kaytina needed a strange type of weapon, one that Saber didn’t actually know; karambits. At the sight of the description, he sort of just… stood there… and stared at the book.
“What’s a Karambit…?” The man wiggled his nose slightly and tried to form the image in his mind, but he had never actually heard of that type of weapon. Yet, thankfully, it seemed his requester had added a short description of the weapons. The weapon needed was a fighting knife that had a blade in the shape of a hawk bill. That meant it would probably have a really sharp curve to it. The first thing Saber really thought of was something in the shape of a talon, and then he thought of a velociraptor’s sharp toe-daggers. That was probably the shape of it. Due to the short length, which was four inches, the knife probably was meant to be used in extremely close quarters. That was solidified by the player’s class; Monk. So, this person needed a set of knives they could use while up in the face of their opponent. The weapons would need to be short and extremely sharp, while having the versatility of being able to be held in a reverse grip. Such a thing was easily done, however Saber still needed an image to work with or something that he could use for a reference.
The Blacksmith quickly noted down the request in a message box and returned to his hidden tunnel, closing the stone wall behind him. As he descended, Saber mentally searched the library for the location of a book he had seen before. He had not read it or taken it off the shelf at all before that moment but it stood out to him because of its thickness and its name; Encyclopedia of Blades. If it was what he thought, that book would have his answer. But where was it? The library was huge and pretty much looked the same. He had also stumbled upon the book when he was actually looking for another. It was high up in the shelves, maybe thirty feet up, as the other book was just a little higher.
“Wait a minute…” Saber paused as he entered the Library and looked sharply to his left. Quickly, he marched along the wall and passed three rows of massive bookcases. At the forth, he grabbed the ladder against the wall and rolled it to the right to about a third of the way down. Just after there was a split in the bookcase, signifying a change in book numbers, the man noticed that the books changed to the genre of swordplay. It was there that he stopped his horizontal progression, locked the ladder in, and began to climb. He did so quickly, and his eyes scanned the books directly underneath the ladder as he did. After about twenty steps up, his eye caught the sight of a massive book. Upon closer inspection, he found what he was looking for; the encyclopedia. It was a huge thing, literally. That was the only word he could use to describe it as it was almost a foot thick. It was larger than some of the dictionaries he had come across and weighed about twice their size. This book he could not read on the ladder, doing so was unsafe. So once he had his book, the player carefully returned to the floor.
There, he set the book down on one of the ladder’s steps and opened it from the back in order to access the index. He flipped to the letter ‘K’ and then went to ‘KA’. After scanning downwards from there, Karambit was easily found; page two-thousand-four-hundred-one. Saber grumbled at the number and pried the massive information container open from the center; he was only at six thousand at that point. Again, he chopped the book in half, three-thousand. With another light pull, he shed another five-hundred pages. Then, fifty. At that point, he didn’t risk over shooting his mark and began to flip through the mass a few pages at a time. The instant he flipped to his needed page, his eyes locked onto the image the author had happily provided for him.
It was an extremely small weapon in scale with the other things he had made and was honestly quite strange, but its description was one that would definitely lead to blood, lots of blood, and said blood would be everywhere. There were several variants of the blade and a few different descriptions of potential types. The book also listed close family members to the blades, replicas, and potential replacements. It also listed its battle capabilities, advantages, disadvantages, weak points, strong points, and even had suggestions on its usage. There was even a short list of ways to learn how to use the karambit. The sheer amount of information astounded Saber, and with that in mind, he flipped to another random weapon. What appeared was something called the Spatha. Again, there was a plethora of information on the weapon from ways on how to make it, how to modify the design, to how to actually use it. Needless to say, Saber marked the page that held information on the karambit and took the book with him away from the shelf. Although before he left, Saber unlocked his ladder and pushed it back to the wall, careful to provide just enough power behind his push so the ladder didn’t bash against the wall.
When he returned to his forge, Saber was greeted by a raging inferno within his furnace. He let it be for the moment and placed his new information brick onto his worktable, clearing a space in the center of his tools in the process. He popped open the page to the new weapon he would be crafting and stared at the image, burning its shape and size into his mind. The requester had asked for a four inch weapon, but that was quite small so he would have to modify its design a little so it was a more balanced weapon. In addition, due to the player being a monk and being so close, Saber would add a double-edged effect to the blade. The encyclopedia mentioned that doing so would increase its bleeding ability, and would allow the user to strike their opponent more often. Yet, Saber was a bit apprehensive about the double edge. If it wasn’t done correctly, the blade could actually become weaker. It also became a threat to the user. One missed swing or a loose grip could end with the blade slicing its owner. Yet, in this case, the karambit would just have to be a little denser than usual. Adding some weight to the weapon would help with control and balance. If all went well, the recipient of the twin knives wouldn’t have any issues.
Not daring waste another second, Saber grabbed the iron bar he had placed on the table and dropped it into his furnace. A moment later, he slid the door closed to keep any ashes from spraying out at him and stared at the bar through the grate. He took a step away to avoid being slow-cooked himself and watched as the iron bar began to heat. After a few seconds, Saber returned to his work table and grabbed the tongs there and his blacksmith hammer. At the same time, he eyed the image of the weapon he was making again. Although this time he was able to remember it quite well. With that, he returned to the furnace to see that his iron bar was beginning to glow. The man sighed, agitated by how slow his old furnace was but he did not try to mess with it. The current temperature was high enough, as indicated by a small dial attached to the right side of the small box. Any higher and Saber risked damaging the weapons he would be forming. Plus, the lower heat level allowed for a higher stability. Thus, Saber could control the heating process more. But it was still slow, and he hated that.
However once the bar was ready, and glowed a lovely orange, Saber nudged the grate open and removed the bar. Immediately, he placed it onto the anvil and started to deliver powerful blows to the middle of the iron bar. Replacing his tongs with a metal pick, Saber pounded straight through the center of the iron bar. Due to being heated, the metal brick very easily cracked in half and broke into two pieces. Then, Saber returned one to the front of his furnace, keeping it hot. Back at his anvil, he began to break down the first square, bashing his hammer down on the center and around the edges in order to start to shrink the bar. This bar was much smaller than the others and it initially belonged to the “dagger” pile. Bars in that pile ranged from half to a quarter of the size of the others Saber made, which minimized the amount of hammering and chiseling required in his forging process. Indeed, it make the weapon creation process much faster, and Saber was glad for his choice to do such a thing.
After creating a slightly mashed up piece of iron, Saber returned the pending alpha dagger into the furnace so it could reheat. Then, he removed the beta dagger. Much like the first half, Saber began to bash his hammer down onto it. He really didn’t want to say it, but the first bar was really a trial. Saber didn’t exactly know how to form the metal to suit the description of the karambit. However, now he placed his strikes a little more carefully, both flattening the bar while working on its curve. It took a bit more work, as bending metal or even cohercing it to turn was no easy task. After it cooled even a little, making that shape was almost impossible. So, he returned the bar back to the inferno much faster than he had with the first half. By the time he returned it, the Alpha Bar was ready again. Due to him already forming the bar a little, Saber immediately began to focus purely on the curve.
Frustration began to set in early and Saber actually stopped hammering the bar after it put up such a fierce resistance. Although he would have none of that; this craft would be completed, damn it, and the bar would become a knife whether it wanted to or not. So, he tossed it back into the flames and shoved it deep into the furnace, burying it beneath the many roaring coals which were there. In seconds, the bar was glowing brightly once again. Saber sneered at it and returned to the anvil for a very violent beating. The hammer the Blacksmith wielded pounded the heated metal, creating massive dents with almost every strike. However, the secondary and tertiary hits began to work the kinks out, smoothing the heavy impact craters into slight bends which much more manageable. Then, Saber slid the bar off to the coned side of the anvil and start to strike one end, causing the metal to curve. After just a few more strikes, the shape started for form.
Due to the bar cooling to an unsafe level, Saber returned it into the furnace and pulled out the second half. This one was already taking shape for the most part, but Saber still placed it onto the flat side of the anvil. There, he added several finishing knocks to the edges. After just a few smooth touches, the bar was placed onto the cone of the anvil. Swiftly, Saber began to tap on the edge of the bar and twisted his wrist as to make the curve smooth, but sharp. Rather than mash the bar, he tenderly caressed it and bended it to his will, literally. By the time it was even starting to cool off to a dangerous level, the talon shape had been almost completely formed. But before he returned the Beta Bar to the embrace of his personal hell pit, Saber placed it on top of the anvil and started to smash the bar flat. With the curve almost completely formed, he began to turn the bar into an actual dagger shape. With the image of a talon in his mind, but a much more slender one, Saber started to flatten the actual blade end of the iron bar, but also kept it compact as to keep its density. Not willing to risk damaging the weapon any longer because of the bar loosing heat, Saber quickly returned the object to the furnace.
He returned to his anvil with the stubborn piece of metal and swiftly started to bash his hammer into it. This time, the metal listened to his demands and started to take the shape of a knife. The Alpha had learned its place it seemed, even if it was an inanimate object. But that didn’t matter, Saber continued to smash it anyways. With each blow, the shape of a talon became even more apparent and Saber began to rotate between the cone and the flat side of his anvil. He began using the cone more at first, but as the blade started to take its shape, he focused more on the actual knife shape and keeping the metal compressed. Slowly, steadily, smoothly, Saber tended to his newborn, but the moment was brief. After a short lived barrage of strikes, Saber returned the Alpha Bar to the furnace and pulled out its sister. This would be the final round…
Without wasting any time, as Saber was losing every second the instant he removed the bar from its heat source, the Blacksmith instantly placed the nearly completed dagger onto his anvil. With the tongs still in hand, Saber grabbed his hammer and began mashing down on the weapon in front of him. He focused on the blade, thinning it and mending it to make the talon-shape more pronounced, but then he started to curve the blade itself. Slowly, but sharply, Saber caused both edges of the weapon to come to very fine points. These points would be the baselines for the knife’s cutting edges, and Saber was very careful in their creation. Not only did he lighten his impacts, but he also gripped onto the hammer he swung a little tighter in order to control his hits more.
Just as the threat of the temperature being too low came across Saber’s mind, he placed the piece of metal down, adjusted the grip his tongs had on it, and then dipped it into his trough. There, it sizzled and a massive cloud of steam rose into the air around it. Saber narrowed his eyes on the knife and then removed it from the water bath, raising it to his face. It looked rough, but the overall shape was made. Unlike his other crafts where he would have started to clean up the weapon, he put this dagger off to the side on his workbench. He still had one more knife to finish, and it was glowing right in the middle of his furnace. Saber nodded to himself and reached in his tongs, the water on them turning to vapor almost instantly, so he could grab the hot piece of weaponized iron. Pulling it free and seeing the bright yellowish glow, Saber reminded himself to be careful. Carrying the heated item to his anvil, Saber began to strike it again.
With the same steady, careful pace as he had with the other knife, Saber struck the little piece of metal with a fierce but gentle force. The metal clanged loudly through the quiet library, sparks flew into the air, and heat rushed over the Blacksmith’s skin. His face dripped sweat, his forearms glistened, and his lungs begged for more oxygen. Yet the man’s eyes were focused on the metal, his lips were closed into a tight line, and his nose flared as his arms worked the metal into its final shape. One swing after another, the Assassin worked the glowing out into what he would personally consider the most stubborn blade yet. The instant he was satisfied, and his mind was set, the glowing metal met water. Again, a loud sizzle echoed into the air and water shifted from liquid to a gas. Saber leaned away from the misty cloud, electing not to have his face melted off by hot water. It didn’t take long for the water bubbling and transforming to finish, and a moment later Saber was back at his workbench.
Armed with a bit of polish, a very thin grinder, and a forearm-sized piece of whetstone, Saber began to work on the two little daggers a lot more closely. He ran his fingers over the blades, testing their roughness, and then started to rub them against the whetstone. Very carefully, he rolled the knives over the sharpening stone and performed the steady rhythm he had learned from the time he was an apprentice. Slow, steady, and rough, each glide over the whetstone made the knife just a little more deadly, just a little more useful, and just a little bit sexier. Each run made the edges sharper and the weapons more appealing for use, and each run made the knife more loveable. The drops of sweat which felt off Saber’s forehead were the only signs of love he ever knew how to show. The pain he put himself through in order to ensure another person’s safety was the only sign to show that he cared, and he would never show it.
No, he would never show this person his face. He wouldn’t show them the sweat on his body, the tiredness in his eyes, or let them hear the heavy breathes which he took. They would only see the perfect blade which he made for them and be reminded by the emblem which he would engrave. These were their weapons to use, but these were his children. Saber was not a romantic man, but deep down, the weapons he made were the closet things to family he had in this world. These weapons were made by his own hands, crafted in the fires which he berthed. They would be used by others because he willed their creation. His own weapons would be used to protect him from the world, and would be used to save others. These children of war, brothers of arms, and protectors of their creator were all Saber’s family. Each had a personality to them, one which was quietly locked away in the cores of the metal, and they were all alive. That was what Saber believed. His family was small in number, but each one was perfect in its own way, and each family member got the same treatment when it was created.
Each weapon was given a loving stroke, a soft touch, and a stern spanking, just like a real child would receive. They were all sharpened until their blades were thin enough to split bone, they were all polished to the point where Saber could see himself, and they were all sanded and grinded so they their sides were soft, smooth, and slick. Upon their final creation, Saber could use every knife as a cooking knife, and every blade as a stick to eat off if he wanted to have some kind of shish kebab. However, in the case of the daggers he was making, Saber went beyond that. He made sure the edges were perfect and that he could see the details in his iris’ when he looked at them. Then, once they were finished being cleaned up, Saber carefully tempered them to have a black sheen. At that point, the blades were essentially finished. After he removed them from the furnace and finished giving them their black-colored characteristics, he placed the two talon shaped blades beside the encyclopedia he had pulled off the bookshelf. It was like a mirror image, except the talons he had crafted were twice as deadly; they had two edges whereas the pictured blade only had one.
Nodding, Saber carefully pulled the cloth he had prepared over as well as his branding sticks. Carefully, Saber heated the hilts of both knives as well as his brander. Once bother were hot enough, he pressed the Funeral Parlor emblem into the hilts of the two weapons. After that was complete and the metal had cooled, he wrapped a thin layer of comfy cloth over the hilt, wrapping the base metal with a cylinder of fluff. Next he finished the twin karambits with a much thicker and rougher cloth which would keep the user from gripping too tightly, but would also increase the amount of grip on the weapon. And with that, he was finished.
Clutching both of the Karambits in his hands, the Assassin raised them up in front of him and grinned. He swung both at the air and listened to the whipping of the blades as the thick underground space was cut through. He moved through his workspace, chaining cuts and swings together as he tested the weapons on a set of imaginary creatures. Blood splattered, heads rolled, and the body of a King Goblin dropped to the floor in Saber’s imagination. As it did, the man hooked his thumbs into the rear circles behind the hilts and twirled the knives around. Once they were backwards again, he clutched them and dropped his hands to his waist, mimicking the holstering motion of his own dagger that he had once used. At the thought of that knife, he frowned… It was missing, as he had lost it somewhere in his travels. Now that he remembered it, he felt sad. That knife was actually one of his first creations and he cherished it, even though it was a terribly crafted item. He planned to tend to it once he was a higher level, but now that he was a higher level, it was gone.
A sigh escaped Saber’s lips as he thought about that knife, but he pushed the emotions off to the side for the moment. Right now he had work to finish. With the twin karambits finished, Saber created a pair of black holsters for the pair of blades and loosely tied them into their new homes. Then, he placed them both in a small felt bag. He carried that bag with him as he left the forge and headed towards the stairs, pulling up his menu midstride. The requester of the two knives was named Kaytina, if Saber remembered correctly, so he placed that name into the recipient of the message. However, he removed his own name from the sender and replaced it with a pair of brackets, [], as to denote and anonymous sender. As he reached the stairs, he began to enter the message…
“Your items have been crafted as you have requested and are ready for your pickup. They will be placed in the large urn to the left of the sign-in table for whenever you are ready. Your items are in the purple felt bag. Please return this felt bag to the small urn beside the large one. Should you have any other requests, feel free to return at any time. Thank you for your business.
-Funeral Parlor.”
Just when he finished the message, Saber reached the top of the stairs. He pushed open the door and slid it just enough so that he could step out, but not completely open, as he would not be long. After hitting the send button on his menu, Saber strode across the room and placed the felt bag within the large urn, nestling it in comfortable at the bottom of the pot. Closing the top, Saber nodded to himself and then approached the books on the table so that he could check off Kaytina’s craft. When that was done the man slipped back behind the secret stone door and pulled it close, vanishing back into the library below.
