The Pink Sword (Crafting/Solo)

[DJMcloud]

Tobias wandered the flower fields, following a lead that may not pan out to much of anything. He had heard from some of the landers that there was an uncommon material that could be useful for a beginner blacksmith in the area of these fields. “Let’s see… ten meters past the yellow flowers… take a right… then a left, then diagonal… then…” His eyes spun in circles, he was so bad with maps sometimes. Luckily he remembered his Courier skill and activated his Checkpoint ability, illuminating a pillar of light not that far from where he was. He rushed over the checkpoint with a smile, a bit too eager and tripping on some nearby rocks, landing face-first on something hard.

“Ow…” He looked down to what he had fallen on to find a cloudy, glassy stone just on the surface of the rock face. “I guess I found it…” He rubbed his aching head as he stared at the vein. It wasn’t large but it was much more than he needed fro a single sword. “So this is it… Rose Quartz.” He looked over it, remembering the information he’d gathered on it from his real life and the Landers. It was a relatively sturdy and beautiful rock that was believed to be used for emotional healing, perfect for him.

Tobias stood up, grabbing a nearby rock and using the tip of his current starter sword as a pickaxe and wedge, jammed the rock against the hilt and fractured the vein of rose quarts right where the sword was, slowly chipping away at pieces of it. Without proper mining equipment, gathering the stone was slow and tedious but after a couple hours he managed to gather a few ping pong ball-sized shards of the stone. He gathered up the fruits of his efforts, confident in the uniqueness of his idea and headed off to his blacksmith forge.

[DJMcloud]

Returning to his forge and furnace, Tobias set down two bags worth of materials. In one bag were the shards of Rose Quarts he had obtained form his mining expedition guided by the Landers and extracted from the flower grove. In the other bag were materials he had bought specifically for the forging of this weapon. One clump of unrefined iron, one clump of basic coal and one old quencher to cool down the metal once it had been forged. He spread the materials out across his anvil and workbench, gazing intently on what he had to work with. This was his first time doing blacksmithing of any kind, but luckily he had a template to work off of.

He inspected the materials carefully to test the plausibility of this weapon working out the way he wanted. The coal and quencher were satisfactory as far as he could tell, the real issue would be with the actual materials that would make up the sword itself. He could work on purifying the iron a bit more to make it a bit stronger than the sword he started with and use the iron as reinforcement for the beautiful Rose Quartz he had found. He tested the strength of the metal, not fantastic but if tempered it could make a decent sword. The Rose Quartz was somewhat weaker and prone to fracturing but had some quality to it. As long as he reinforced the quartz with a lot of metal he should be able to make a nice-looking and useful sword in any case. Now they he had it all planned out he prepared to get to work, firing up the furnace with the goal and using some borrowed billows to get it up to a good heat. He looked over his materials one more time and prepared his 'template'. It was time to get started on this sword and the real task of a blacksmith. Hopefully this would all work out well.

[DJMcloud]

He melted down the impure metal in the now-heated furnace, removing some of the impurities in the process and forming the metal into somewhat usable imperfect ingots. He also carefully, heated, molded and crafted the Rose Quartz into a fine shape to use in the sword. Setting the shards to the side he reheated the ingots to a moderate temperature in the still-warm furnace. While the iron was still hot he placed his starter iron long sword on the workbench nearby. He had found some malleable material to make a mold of the sword to make sure it held the right shape but with better materials for his first time crafting a weapon.

He poured the now-liquid-ish metal into the mold, imbuing the mix with the rose quartz shards to give it extra quality and beauty. He carefully placed the materials throughout the mold, using the quencher to cool it slightly, letting it sit and settle into the mold before heating it one more time. He banged the hot sword into shape, making sure the metal was evenly and properly distributed into the mold, accidentally breaking the mold in the process of removing it but slightly adjusting the shape was he went. He manipulated the metal as best he could while it was still red-hot and soft, hitting it with the quencher again and letting it cool off, inspecting his new sword.

He looked over the blade, not great but a noble first attempt. It largely took the same size and shape as his old starter blade but had the time and effort of a personally crafted piece as opposed to a mass-produced knockoff. Despite its flaws it was his first time working as a blacksmith and he was reasonably pleased with the results. The sword was solid and weighty as a long sword should be, with some blemishes and impurities and the shape wasn’t perfect of course. However the Rose Quarts gave the sword a nice pink gleam that made up for its imperfect appearance. It was far from the strongest sword even for its level but it was his and he would look forward to honing his craft more and making and collecting many more fine swords like this. He carved a small hawk’s wing symbol into the hilt of the blade to designate it as his creation, something he made and cared for, warts and all.