Post by Conchobar on Mar 23, 2015 10:18:16 GMT
If you ask someone what they want out of life, most people will describe 'the easy life'. The kind of life where they don't need to work anymore, where they can sit back and relax all day and do nothing if they so desired. Truth be told, this wasn't the worst 'end goal' in the world. It means that they succeeded in whatever it was they were doing, and you should be happy for that. The problem, though, is that nobody seems to put much effort into the 'how' of the question. They want the easy life, but they don't necissarily want to work for it. They wanted to effectively be royalty, without the political ramifications. Conchobar didn't care for that, very much. Anything worth having was worth working for, and thats why he was here. He was here for hard work and experience. He was here to improve himself in more ways than one. He, like everyone else, wanted the easy life, sure, but he didn't want it handed to him on a silver platter. Anything not worked for wasn't worth having, in his opinion, and he wouldn't accept it, even given the chance.
Sometimes hard work pays off. Conchobar had chosen the Blacksmithing subclass in order to make his own armor, and felt like he would be better playing his role if he could do it. It was often that working with the people of the land created tension, but he worked out a deal with a forge owner. For no actual cost, he was allowed into his mine, where he was to mine as much ore as he desired. two thirds of the ore mined was to go to the owner of the mine, while he could keep the final third. On top of that, he was allowed to use the forge when it wasn't otherwise in use, so long as anything that he made was to go to the shop to be sold or used. In the end, Conchobar would get next to nothing out of the ordeal, but experience, and in the end, that is all that he wanted. Of course, when speaking of the abstract term of experience, people of the land may refer to the knowledge gained through use, but in Conchobar's case, he referred to literal experience points to level up his blacksmithing skill. It was early in the morning and Conchobar set off towards the mines with a rather nice pickaxe over his shoulder. This, admittedly, had been a purchase, but the pick that he was otherwise going to use was of generic quality, this one was better, and he could keep it after the fact, so he had no problem spending the money. The mine wasn't the most active in the world, as the blacksmith was more for repairing wanderer's gear, than he was actually selling equipment. That meant that he didn't need a massive store of the ore, though always appreciated it. In fact, the blacksmith implied that he did most of the mining himself. Interesting, the wolfhair figured, but now it was his turn. Despite being a Sorcerer, he had a decent strength stat to compliment his fighting style, and that allowed him to not have to worry to much about making many trips with small amounts of ore.
Into the mouth of the mine, he would notice that it was immediately colder than outside, despite regular torches on the walls helping light anything up. It could just be because of stagnant air, and lack of sunlight, but then again, if he was working, he wouldn't want to already be hot, because then he could over heat. The owner of the mine informed him of what it was he needed to look for in the mineshaft, and sent him on his way. The mine was surprisingly large, given that it was dug out by mostly one man. He had to give credit to the shopkeep, he was certainly not someone to turn away from a challenge! There were signs placed upon many of the branching passages that said "Dead" or "Empty" labling them having been exhausted of resources. After about a good ten minutes of walking the male found himself at the currently active branch, and began following it down. "This guy sure is dedicated to the craft. I doubt he would be willing to teach me anything, given I'm an adventurer, but it might not be a bad idea to try sometime..." He mumbled to himself, following the torch light until he found exactly what he was looking for. The almost rust colored ore was clearly visible in the wall as he would draw the pickaxe and tap it against the side of the wall, testing its strength and effectiveness. The tool felt sturdy in his hands, flexing just enough to avoid hurting him, but no where near the threshold of damage. It was a good tool. Bringing his hands into the air, he would pull down to deliver a powerful strike on the wall. Immediately he could see the stone fracturing and splitting from where the steel dove deep into the stone, while the ore seemed unharmed. A broad smile came to his face as he would nod to nobody in particular. Another swing would fracture more and more of the stone. He had to start swinging at different angles in order to get the ore out, swing by swing, until eventually a large slab of iron ore would fall onto the floor. It was much too big do be taken as is, and so he decided the appropriate thing to do would be to hammer away at it, until it was broken into more manageable hunks.
He got a good five pieces of ore out of it, more than he expected, for his first attempt, but that was only a very small vein, one that was already depleted. It would pale in comparison to a 'real' vein, the kind people actually talk about, not this scrap that was left in the wall. What he was looking for were the massive veins that would give someone all that they could possibly need for crafting. But that would require him to do things the hard way. He reached the end of the shaft, knowing it was far from the 'point of no return' at which point, he took his pick and started at the wall, blow after blow, watching the stone start to crumble under his unrelenting strikes. He knew he was in the right place, but now he had to find more iron. After a good half hour of mining, he found the first problem that would be slowing him down: The rubble. He had created a decent amount of headway down the tunnel, at least, considering he was just one man, but the stone rubble had already started to build up. while He had plenty of inventory space, this was the kind of thing he couldn't do efficiently. Slipping the pickaxe into a leather loop on his belt, he made his way towards the entrance of the mine again, grabbing a wheelbarrow, in which he could load up with the rubble and dispose of it. It was a long, slow process due to the distance he had to travel, but it was hard work, somthing that would probably help him out in the long run. After all, this built muscle, right? And swinging a blacksmith's hammer for hours on end in the heat of a forge would also build strength. In the end, he wouldn't complain, as he needed it done. He couldn't work with all the stone on the ground. There was a specific area that he was to dump the stone, and it was a reasonable distance away. Apparently the stone was good enough for quarrying, so it was often sifted through for building projects. But it wasn't his concern, as he was here for the ore.
Conchobar developed a general routine, working tirelessly in the mine. For every ten foot of cavern space, he would have to spend about an hour hauling stone out of the mine. He lost track of just how long he had been mining, before he swung his pick and it barely went into the stone at all. He had used weaker swings that were effective at breaking the stone, without overly tiring him, but when the earth recoiled at his strike, he couldn't help but feel the ache in his arms. But, it was a good thing, because while the swings could work through the stone, they certainly weren't strong enough to deal with the Iron. A smirk came to Conchobar's face as he took some swings around at the stone, trying to isolate where the vein was, before he would be able to make it much clearer. This was a large vein, one that would give him more than enough to work with, even if he was surrendering a third of the ore he acquired to the owner. He took the time to wheel out the extra rubble on the ground first, to make sure he wouldn't run out of space before he would start on the vein. While the previous hunk of ore was merely a large gathering, this was a full on vein of ore, allowing him to get enough to start actually practicing. Loading the few chunks he already had into the wheelbarrow, he started taking heavy swings at the thick ore, watching his pick bounce more than pierce, but seeing it still start to fracture and crack into much more manageable pieces. He ended up having to make multiple trips for the ore, ending up with three full wheelbarrows of iron ore. Back to the shop he would go, one at a time, until all three were there, and he would retrieve the Blacksmith for his inspection. Needless to say, the blacksmith was stunned by the sheer amount he had retrieved by himself, but, a deal was a deal. While he did check the iron to make sure it was all legitiamtely ore, and no stone mixed in to pad the numbers, he admitted it was completely legit. He wheeled the two wheelbarrows into the front of the store, where he could properly inspect them for different uses, while Conchobar took his own into the back, where he could fire up the forge and see what he could start with.
Starting up the forge was going to be quite the annoying process, as it would take quite a while in order for it to heat up to the appropriate amount. While this DID give him time to relax his arms from the long mining expedition, and prepare himself for the work at the forge itself. He was at least given all of the supplies he would need to make the basic items he wanted for practice. There was an anvil with a large hammer, there was a kiln for heating metal for work, as well as water for quenching the metal. There were other tools as well, mostly for aesthetics, but get a hammer, and a way to heat the metal, you can make most anything. Of course, the only additional thing was a small box of whetstones, and a grindstone for sharpening weapons. This was good. This meant he could continue working alone, at his own pace... for the most part. He still had to surrender the forge to the owner whenever he needed it, but if it was already lit, that meant that he shouldn't take too much time. And after all, he was creating free merchandice for the shop, so that gave the owner insentive to leave him alone. Not that he was against the black smith checking in on him, or that he thought he was above the owner for one reason or another, no no, not by any means. He just hated getting into the groove of something and then being forced to stop. As far as the blacksmith himself goes, Conchobar would actually love it if he came by to give him some advice. He always appreciated good critique no matter the source, so long as it genuinely was good critique. There was a fine line between critiqueing something, and insulting it, and unfortunately, there are too many people who didn't even realize there was a difference. They would rip and tear apart things people did, and call it 'critique' and to make matters worse, the people recieving this 'critique' didn't even know any better either. They would take the hate and insults and think thats what they were supposed to recieve. Thats like opening a gift box and finding dog poop, but being okay with it because you thought thats what was supposed to happen. It really isn't. Conchobar knew the difference though. If someone is giving you information that is designed to make you improve, no matter how positive or negative it is, then it is legitmate critique. However, when something has no use, offers no ways to improve, either by example or by advice, then it was just hate, drivle not to be taken seriously, ignored if at all possible. That being said, there were some gifted people out there who were able to look past hateful comments and draw critique from them, but they were few and far between, and even then, that didn't justify them recieivng insults instead of critique.
Time would pass slowly for the spell sword as he watched a small thermometer-esque device show when the furnace was hot enough to begin working, standing when it was finally time. Blacksmithing was far from a rapid task, and first thing he had to do was get the ore melted down and the impurities removed. One at a time he would begin unloading the large wheelbarrow, watching as the metal and stone soon started to turn bright red, and soon began to melt. As soon as he had the molten iron, he would be able to cast it into ingots, and from there, he could let them cool, and finally start working. He couldn't do anything complicated first, even if he was well versed on the how. He had to wait for his level to be higher. That meant, at least to him, that he should start on small things like nails or something. Then he could work his way up to weapons.... or maybe stick to the mundane. Making armor plates would be nice, and simple, or metal plates and cups, though those may be more complicated than they're worth. Nails were often used for apprentices, though, so thats where he would start.. when he was done casting at least. He very well may have overdone it with the iron, as he could be working for a month straight before he used all of it. but that was a good thing. You always want more, rather than less. And after all, he wanted experience, so why not have too much? A small smirk came to his face as he poured his seventh ingot, and decided to stop, at least for the moment. If he needed more, he could make it, but he was so excited to actually get started, he didn't mind breaking it up. And if it was as tiring as he expected it to be, then he could probably use the excuses to take a break. With the iron cast into ingots, he would start stacking them up on the side of the work bench as he would take a metal-saw, and start hacking away at the ingots, to get them into smaller and smaller pieces. There was no need to heat the whole ingot if only making nails, so he thought it would be best if they were cut up into smaller pieces. As for the metal shavings, he would sweep them into a small bowl, so he could re-melt them another time. The Wolfhair would be left with a few dozen small iron bricks. One at a time, he would take them and place them in the nearby forge in order to super-heat them to be bright red, before using tongs to bring them back onto the bench, and use a crafters' hammer to tap it into a very thin needle, using a wedge to split it in half, and then tapping on one of each of the ends to flatten it out. He would then drop both nails into the quenching bucket, and let them sink. The bucket wasn't very deep, so it wouldn't be any effort to reach in and pull them out with the tongs, examining his first creation.
"Not bad... Probably more brittle than anything used professionally, but this would be effective for small projects..." He would hear a voice say, turning to look at the Blacksmith coming to check on him. "Oh, sorry about that, I didn't see you there." The wolfhair would remark, smiling politely at him as he would hand one of the nails to the blacksmith for further examining.
"You've got the idea right. The rest comes with practice. Keep at it, and I might actually be able to sell some of the things you make." The blacksmith said with a hearty laugh. Admittedly, the owner of the shop was wary when Conchobar first made his proposition, but he wanted to believe after making good on the first part of his deal, and bringing such a large amount of ore with him, that the blacksmith would be treating him more appropriately. He took the jest for what it was, nodding as he would throw a few more wedges of ingot into the furnace, working on them each one at a time. He did his best to make each of the nails identical to each other, dropping them into the quenching bucket, but moving to the next in the series before completing and starting over again. He continued this rhythm until he reached for another wedge, and there were no more left. He started pulling out the nails, laying them out on the workbench, and examining them, seeing just how his handiwork was. He was not too pleased to see how few were the same length, as well as a number of them having imperfections that would cause them to be too brittle to use. That wasn't good, but it was better that he made these mistakes first, before he got too cocky or something. He took the nails he determined to be good enough for use and set them aside, before he would scoop the rest of the nails into the bowl of metal shavings, to be remelted later. He would take another of the ingots and see if he could have an easier time with making an actual weapon. He had seen many examples of how it would be done, and he had more than enough tools to do it. Reaching to one of the other Ingots, he took a metal saw and cut it in half, knowing he didn't need THAT much metal. He heated it up as he took a moment to determine just which hammer he was going to need, selecting on a medium sized one, and retrieving the metal from the forge, he started hammering it out flat. He knew the shape he was going for, a simple single edged curved dagger, with the handle being full tang. With the heat and light of the forge on his face, and the rhythmic tappings of the hammer on hot metal, he started losing track of time. He didn't know how long he was on that dagger, but he was sure it would have been made at least three times over by the time he himself finished with the dagger, but even then, it wasn't the best of quality... or even finished. He then had to make his way over to the grind stone to work on the edge, slowly grinding it to a shiny edge. The top of the blade and the handle were crude, but it had its own charm to it, somehow. It was unrefined in its own way. He would need to add a leather strap around the 'handle' so that it wouldn't cause injury to wield, but other than that, it was functional for sure.
The next few hours he spent working with other daggers, attempting different designs and different shapes, all in the effort to try to 'learn the hard way' but eventually, when you don't know what you're doing, you seem to grow unsure of yourself in the worst of ways. This was when Conchobar took a small break from the forge and went outside. He had no idea how long he had been in there, but it was dark outside. There were some nearby training dummies where potential customers could test new weapons before purchase, or the blacksmith would be able to test to see if they had been properly repaired. He had four daggers with him, one was straight edged, one was curved, and two were straight edged and double bladed. He didn't need to take on a battle stance or anything, taking the daggers, he would test them out, swinging them hard against the dummies, and watching to see how they preformed. The first dagger he made, the curved edge, worked, and did decent damage, but it took heavy points to durability, even from just one strike. That wasn't good. The second dagger snapped after it landed a good blow. That was very bad. The other two were somewhere in the middle. The damage dealt was mediocre, but they weren't just broken immediately. Was that showing progress? The male couldn't tell as he took some time to relax out in the evening, watching the stars.
This whole new world was strange to the wolfhair. While he had based many different mythologies upon this character, none of those mythologies didn't exist in this world, so did it matter? Was there any purpose to it? Sure, the occassional adventurer might get the reference with the name Conchobar or Aegis, but who would know that he chose to be a Wolfhair Berserker to reference Ulfednhar? Or that he chose spell sword as an homage to the magical equipment of yore? In the future, he wanted to be able to make weapons, and perhaps even forge a blade to mimic the mythical Caladbolg, but even then... did it matter? He could strut around as the king of Ireland all he wanted, but if it wasn't something anyone knew, it didn't seem to matter...
Unless he was the king of Ireland... A thought occured to him. He was aware it was completely possible to purchase and own different locations, at obscene prices, but those were in cities. What about if he were to do it in the wilderness? Would it be possible that he could just flat-out build a new city and rule it? This world was based upon the real world, just being half the size. That meant there was still an Ireland... The thoughts continued in his head, about the possibility of going to the wilderness and conquering it, of becoming the King of the country, and renaming it Ireland for himself... Sure, it sounded like a fantasy, but they were constantly able to do brand new things that were otherwise not possible, so why couldn't he conquer a country? Granted, there was absolutely sure to be an obscene number of bosses, and it was quite possible that it would be required to be a raid or even of some kind, but this was still an idea that seemed to latch onto Conchobars mind. Ruling over Ireland as the actual King. Of course, he was sure it would draw the attention of other players, but this wasn't meant to be some kind of power trip, he didn't want to take over the world, he just wanted... Well, okay, so it might have been a bit of a power fantasy, but not with any true malicious intent. He didn't want to subjugate anyone, and he wouldn't given the opportunity. He didn't even need to completely conquer ireland, as there were sure to be monsters that would otherwise not be able to be 'removed'. He just needed to either find out if there was a city, and if there wasn't, make his own. Sure, it could be expanded, but he didn't have to kill everything. After all, it would be quite unfortunate if they were forced to go to a different country every time they wanted to farm. They just needed enough so that they could live on their own.
As the ideas continued to form, he was immediately distracted by the sight of the sun rising. Was it morning already? How long had he been out here? Did he merely come out here close to dawn or had he been out here the whole evening? He didn't know, and he couldn't tell. He just stood up and made his way back into the forge so that he could work on his daggers. They were damaged now, and as much as creating new things were important, it was also very vital that they were capable of repairing equipment as well. He started with the dagger that was merely damaged, his curved blade. He started off by taking the shavings and nails and melting them down, so he would have an easier medium to work with, before he applied a moderate amount of the liquid metal to the blade. This resulted in it being almost competely dull and ugly looking, but it would give him more than enough metal on the weapon to work with. Back on the grindstone, he would grind against the thick layer of additional metal, slowly whittling it down until it was a smooth, sharp edge again. Checking his handiwork, it was clear how inefficient he was, because even after so much work, it was only mostly recovered, still having a few points of durability left on it. But that was a matter for another time, because he was mostly focused on working with the dagger that had snapped in half. This meant it was poor quality for one reason or another, but if he could fix it, it would be important, because broken equipment is harder to fix than damaged equipment. He started with the liquid metal he had on standby, fitting the dagger into a mold, and pouring some of the liquid metal over the broken metal. He would then need to wait for it to cool but that was hardly important. He Needed it to be fixed the correct way, and that meant not cutting corners. When the metal had cooled, he took one of the whetstones and slowly began shaving away at the metal. He couldn't use the grindstone because he needed this done evenly, across the whole blade, to make sure that no part of it was left overly weak. A glaring flaw in a weapon was... Well, it was a glaring flaw. He couldn't answer as to just how long he had been working on it, but the blade looked brand new, and the interface rated it at 100% durability.. granted, 100% durability of an item durability of two wasn't much to be said, but still, it meant he succeeded.
The next project he wanted to work on was something involving armor. He heated a full ingot until it was red hot, and he took a large hammer, and went to work. He could't make a true suit of armor, missing a lot of items such as leather for straps, but he could work on armor plates, and they could be used to fix real pieces of armor. He worked on a simple plate at first, merely a generic one, being large and square, but flat. This would allow it to be easily molded to fit another kind of armor, without it having to worry about being 'too specific'. The initial plate was fine and dandy, and it wasn't that hard, either. In fact, for the sake of repetition, he ended up using the rest of his ingots making more and more plates. The best part was they weren't 'full' construct, meaning they could still be reforged with little issue. He was sure the old man would be able to find good use in them. But that left him with no more ingots, forcing him to take a break and refill his stock, waiting for them to melt in the furnace. But, he needed this break, as his arms had started to burn from the repitition and heavy use of the heavy hammers. The recoil from striking the metal over and over again was starting to wear on him, so he needed to at least attempt to let them recover. At least he knew he was getting a serious work out by doing this kind of work. It would probably help him in the long run when fighting, building up his stamina and his strength, for stronger and stronger hits. Sure, he was a sorcerer, still, and he relied on his enchantments, but they themselves weren't as powerful as actual spells, so he needed to make sure that his physical attacks are powerful as well. While the class he chose was certainly viable, he was going to have to work really hard to make sure it actually worked properly, else he would quickly fall behind... and if he fell too far behind, he wouldn't be able to even attempt that nagging idea of ruling an entire country as the king... Oh that would be so nice... Actually have purpose with the name of Conchobar... But he had a long way to go, and he wouldn't get there by slacking off. The metal had sufficiently melted, and he would start to cast it again as he started daydreaming a bit on just what he would do with a country all to his own. He would be a fair ruler, he figured, because otherwise they would leave... It was a lot to think about, but at the same time, he needed to be careful not to let himself get too caught up on the semantics. If he ruled the country, he would have earned it the hard way, which meant he couldn't take the easy route in the beginning. After the first ingot was cool enough to work, he started working on a shield. Just a small buckler, but this was certainly going to require multiple ingots. He started first with the basic framework, for which the other plates would fit into. The framework would eventually fall into place as he started heating the other ingots, and began hammering them into the appropriate shapes. It looked like a total of five ingots would be used for this particular project, but it would probably be very useful in the long run. After all, with a name like "Aegis" you couldn't have terrible shields.
When he finished hammering out the different sections for the shield, he would have to take some extra time to make sure they were formed together, as to not have obvious brittle edges. It would be quite a terrible shield if it split in four pieces from a well placed kick, after all. Conchobar would end up working on the shield for a few hours, before taking a look at his handiwork. Given what he knew about actual metal crafting, and actual ancient shields, he could say, without a shadow of a doubt, that this shield was complete crap. By every definition! It was poorly balanced, didn't look good, still had obvious weak points that could be taken advantage of, the handle for holding the shield was off center, making it even more unwieldy... Really, he should be ashamed that he had created it... but a part of him wasn't. He made this. It was a piece of crap, sure, but he had actually made it. And that meant that he could start climbing his way to the top. He knew he had a long way to go before he was able to make anything worth having... but it wasn't a bad place to be. He had gotten himself started, and once the ball was rolling, he'd keep it that way. However, he also was wasting his iron with all these failed attempts, and he figured he should help the blacksmith who owned the shop by at least giving him some useable items... which got him back to Nails. He would work on the nails most, because they were simple enough to make many of, but they required enough skill to be able to perfectly replicate his work. He would need to be able to make the same identical nail over and over again. Once he could do that, then he could start working on bigger and better things. As per the usual and par for the course, Conchobar was unaware just how long he had been working. But he made each nail, two at a time. After the first half dozen, he realized how annoying fishing them out of the water was, and ended up making a make-shift net, to sit at the bottom of the quenching bucket, so that, when he was done, or it started getting too full, he could just pull all the nails out by the net, and empty them into a bowl for ease of access. By the time he was done, he would have emptied out the entire wheelbarrow of Iron Ore, and made way too many nails. What he was proud of, though, was that, by the end of it, he had succeeded. The nails were almost all identical, with the few oddballs being able to be explained by impurities in the metal. This not only meant he could recognize how the metal was shaping, easier, but he had learned much more control over his hammer swings, able to make them do the exact same swing over and over as long and as many times as he needed.
With that, though, he was out of workable metal. The only thing he could really see to do at this point was to disassemble the failures. The shield was the biggest offender, in his opinion, and to prove it to himself, he took his hammer and swung it hard, hitting it right in the center. That should have been the strongest point, and yet the entire thing collapsed into a pile of poorly worked metal plates. Shaking his head, piled all the unsuable stuff into the wheelbarrow. He couldn't make any use of it at this point, but he knew that a skilled blacksmith like the one that owned the shop, would probably be able to use the scrap to repair something, or even turn it into something genuinely useable. But, he was done. He had used up all the metal, and he didn't have much more use of being here, so he would check on the Blacksmith. He seemed much more friendly now than before. Perhaps he really appreciated someone who was working so hard to improve their craft, and that he, as an adventurer, really wasn't just trying to swindle him, or find an easy way out. He had gathered ore himself, he had worked the forge himself, and he had worked the metal himself. If anything, he was happy with the Adventurer. Conchobar showed what he had done for him, curious of critique. Minding the items in the wheelbarrow, he got about as harsh of a critique form the person of the land as he had given to himself. These were scrap quality, nothing else. But then he showed off the nails he had made. These he took more time to examine, trying to find flaws in them, not in an attempt to berate or bring Conchobar down, but that the wolfhair had an untrained eye, or at least, not one as trained as his, and therefor, wouldn't necissarily be able to see all the flaws. After a while of examining them, he separated the nails into three piles. The first pile were nails that were good enough to sell, ones that he could, and would, put on the shelves for customers. This was the smallest pile, but it was to be expected. The second pile was nails that, while he wouldn't sell them, he felt they were good enough quality to use nonetheless, and would keep them on hand for use around the shop. The third and largest pile could easily be guessed, as it was the rejects. He took the time to explain the different flaws with them, spending more time on the subtle flaws that he would have easily missed, than he would on the glaring ones that Conchobar was more than obviously aware of. The male very much appreciated this, though, because without knowing what he did wrong, how could he know what he did right? He learned a lot, talking with the blacksmith, and he felt like, should he go for a second around, he would do much better. But, he had spent enough time here. The shopkeeper said that, should he wish to return, under the same conditions, he would be more than welcome. That was reassuring, for sure. He had a guarenteed place to practice his art. A place where he could get iron, and work a forge. Sure, he wouldn't be able to keep any of it, but this was for practice, not for profit.
As he left, Conchobar realized that this had been a good experience all around. He had learned about mining, and a thing or two about locating the ore, he had worked a forge and furnace, something that would surely prove useful in the future, and he actually made functional items. Sure, they were nails, but even the greatest blacksmiths start somewhere... Okay, not all of them, he was pretty sure Hephaestus was literally born able to make legendary pieces of equipment. But he wasn't a god! He was a.. no, he wasn't a king, at least, not yet. He was just a man, with a plan. He needed to improve his skills, both his subclasses and his main classes. While he was sure he would be in plenty of combat, grinding to make his main class better, his subclasses would be much more difficult... okay, his Blacksmithing skill would be more difficult. Berserker would level up through use as well, so really, that let him focus all of his non-combat time into the forge. Once he was a high enough level to start making his own equipment, it would be smooth sailing. He would take the items he got from monsters, turn them into weapons and armor, and then sell them. He was his own one man business! Sure, that business plan wasn't necissarily the best, but he was determined to be extremely useful, no matter where he was. The first thing to do, though, was raise his Character level. Slimes and boars didn't drop any useful supplies, so he would have to increase his combat capabilities to start gaining items to use. This time training his blacksmithing skill was more proof of concept than anything. He didn't walk away with anything but experience, and now he would be able to have use of that experience. He had a better eye for quality, and would be able to at the very least repair the equipment he does have without too much issue. Fixing a crack in a shield was much easier than making one from scratch, after all! He wouldn't be making any of his own gear any time soon, that was for sure, but he didn't have to. Early levels would provide him with all the gear he needed, letting him get comfortable with the setting, and then he would be able to start working on bigger projects. Right now the best he could make were a few dozen good quality nails, which wasn't saying much, but at least it was something. It was progress, and progress he was glad to make.
A thought occured to him, of the possibility of failure, and what he would do in the face of it. What if the Spellsword build fell off late game, and he wouldn't be able to progress to even level 70, much less all the way to level 100? What if he couldn't be the blacksmith he needed to be? What if he couldn't gather up enough force to conquer a kingdom for himself? These were heavy thoughts, and truth be told, it was better to have them than to not. Being aware of the possibility of failure was good, as long as it didn't consume you. If you know it's possible to fail, then you're able to prepare for it. However, if you find yourself invulnerable, and undefeatable, you would be knocked off your high horse faster than you could realize what hit you. That didn't stop the thoughts from being unsettling, though. Being useless, being a waste, being a weight around everyone's ankle... It was by no means a pleasant thought for Conchobar to be thinking. But he wouldn't let it get him down. Not by any means. These were thoughts that could happen, but wouldn't. He would fight until the ends of time to make sure that his ideals were seen to, that his dreams were seen through, and that his desires be made reality.
Near the edge of the clearing that the blacksmith's shop stood, he would turn around and look over at where he had come. He walked in here rather big eyed and bushy tailed. Now, he had a much more level head on his shoulders. Granted, he still had delusions of owning an entire kingdom, but he at least wasn't delusional enough to think it would be easy. He had trouble making a simple dagger, how would he conquer a nation? He wouldn't thats how... So he would have to strive to improve himself, make himself better. He had his plans. Get stronger, to be better at blacksmithing. Be a better blacksmith to have better gear to adventure with. It was a nice little circle. One bit of effort pushed towards the next in a nice little dominoes effect. Sure, he had a long way to go, but that wasn't to say he was going to stop. Every step he made would be a foothold to carry himself towards his goals. He wouldn't surrender an inch of his progress for anything. He was Conchobar Aegis! He was going to do great things! This spurred him on, turning to march away with fervor, ready to get started on his dreams of being a Master Blacksmith, of wielding a weapon worthy of being named Caladbolg, forged by his very hand, and weild a shield titled "Aegis" for the most appropriate reasons, of making forward progress of ruling Ireland as a true king, much like his namesake. It was a long road, one that would probably get longer and longer as time went on, but one that he was happy to start marching down. Every step he made would be one of progress and he wouldn't ever stop pushing forward. And why would he? The rode ahead is always rocky and rough with the challenges of the unknown, while the road behind is wet and muddy with the persperation of effort. If he let himself start sliding back even an inch, he would slide down the slippery path all the way down to the bottom. Then he would have to mire through the memories of his failures, paranoia of sliding down again like he had before clinging to him, until he got back to where he was, where everything was dry, but rocky. This time, though, it would be an even more slick path behind him. And every failure would make it more and more difficult to recover. He wasn't going to let that happen, though. He was going to perservere, and not give up an inch. Not for anyone. This a big smile on his face, the wolf hair sorcerer would take one final look at the small forge in the middle of a valley, and the surprisingly large iron mine he had worked so tirelessly in. He hoped the Shop owner would find good use with all the iron ore he had brought him, though that was by no means an implication that he would have ever let it go to waste. Conchobar... merely wished the best upon the old man, and hoped that the ore would save him the effort of mining it up himself, letting him spend more time making even better quality equipment. With that thought in mind, Conchobar turned and walked away, back towards the main city of Londinium. There, he should be able to rest in an inn for a few days with the funds he had collected, and then he would be able to start on his plan by grinding on the local monsters. Small steps, but important ones.
Sometimes hard work pays off. Conchobar had chosen the Blacksmithing subclass in order to make his own armor, and felt like he would be better playing his role if he could do it. It was often that working with the people of the land created tension, but he worked out a deal with a forge owner. For no actual cost, he was allowed into his mine, where he was to mine as much ore as he desired. two thirds of the ore mined was to go to the owner of the mine, while he could keep the final third. On top of that, he was allowed to use the forge when it wasn't otherwise in use, so long as anything that he made was to go to the shop to be sold or used. In the end, Conchobar would get next to nothing out of the ordeal, but experience, and in the end, that is all that he wanted. Of course, when speaking of the abstract term of experience, people of the land may refer to the knowledge gained through use, but in Conchobar's case, he referred to literal experience points to level up his blacksmithing skill. It was early in the morning and Conchobar set off towards the mines with a rather nice pickaxe over his shoulder. This, admittedly, had been a purchase, but the pick that he was otherwise going to use was of generic quality, this one was better, and he could keep it after the fact, so he had no problem spending the money. The mine wasn't the most active in the world, as the blacksmith was more for repairing wanderer's gear, than he was actually selling equipment. That meant that he didn't need a massive store of the ore, though always appreciated it. In fact, the blacksmith implied that he did most of the mining himself. Interesting, the wolfhair figured, but now it was his turn. Despite being a Sorcerer, he had a decent strength stat to compliment his fighting style, and that allowed him to not have to worry to much about making many trips with small amounts of ore.
Into the mouth of the mine, he would notice that it was immediately colder than outside, despite regular torches on the walls helping light anything up. It could just be because of stagnant air, and lack of sunlight, but then again, if he was working, he wouldn't want to already be hot, because then he could over heat. The owner of the mine informed him of what it was he needed to look for in the mineshaft, and sent him on his way. The mine was surprisingly large, given that it was dug out by mostly one man. He had to give credit to the shopkeep, he was certainly not someone to turn away from a challenge! There were signs placed upon many of the branching passages that said "Dead" or "Empty" labling them having been exhausted of resources. After about a good ten minutes of walking the male found himself at the currently active branch, and began following it down. "This guy sure is dedicated to the craft. I doubt he would be willing to teach me anything, given I'm an adventurer, but it might not be a bad idea to try sometime..." He mumbled to himself, following the torch light until he found exactly what he was looking for. The almost rust colored ore was clearly visible in the wall as he would draw the pickaxe and tap it against the side of the wall, testing its strength and effectiveness. The tool felt sturdy in his hands, flexing just enough to avoid hurting him, but no where near the threshold of damage. It was a good tool. Bringing his hands into the air, he would pull down to deliver a powerful strike on the wall. Immediately he could see the stone fracturing and splitting from where the steel dove deep into the stone, while the ore seemed unharmed. A broad smile came to his face as he would nod to nobody in particular. Another swing would fracture more and more of the stone. He had to start swinging at different angles in order to get the ore out, swing by swing, until eventually a large slab of iron ore would fall onto the floor. It was much too big do be taken as is, and so he decided the appropriate thing to do would be to hammer away at it, until it was broken into more manageable hunks.
He got a good five pieces of ore out of it, more than he expected, for his first attempt, but that was only a very small vein, one that was already depleted. It would pale in comparison to a 'real' vein, the kind people actually talk about, not this scrap that was left in the wall. What he was looking for were the massive veins that would give someone all that they could possibly need for crafting. But that would require him to do things the hard way. He reached the end of the shaft, knowing it was far from the 'point of no return' at which point, he took his pick and started at the wall, blow after blow, watching the stone start to crumble under his unrelenting strikes. He knew he was in the right place, but now he had to find more iron. After a good half hour of mining, he found the first problem that would be slowing him down: The rubble. He had created a decent amount of headway down the tunnel, at least, considering he was just one man, but the stone rubble had already started to build up. while He had plenty of inventory space, this was the kind of thing he couldn't do efficiently. Slipping the pickaxe into a leather loop on his belt, he made his way towards the entrance of the mine again, grabbing a wheelbarrow, in which he could load up with the rubble and dispose of it. It was a long, slow process due to the distance he had to travel, but it was hard work, somthing that would probably help him out in the long run. After all, this built muscle, right? And swinging a blacksmith's hammer for hours on end in the heat of a forge would also build strength. In the end, he wouldn't complain, as he needed it done. He couldn't work with all the stone on the ground. There was a specific area that he was to dump the stone, and it was a reasonable distance away. Apparently the stone was good enough for quarrying, so it was often sifted through for building projects. But it wasn't his concern, as he was here for the ore.
Conchobar developed a general routine, working tirelessly in the mine. For every ten foot of cavern space, he would have to spend about an hour hauling stone out of the mine. He lost track of just how long he had been mining, before he swung his pick and it barely went into the stone at all. He had used weaker swings that were effective at breaking the stone, without overly tiring him, but when the earth recoiled at his strike, he couldn't help but feel the ache in his arms. But, it was a good thing, because while the swings could work through the stone, they certainly weren't strong enough to deal with the Iron. A smirk came to Conchobar's face as he took some swings around at the stone, trying to isolate where the vein was, before he would be able to make it much clearer. This was a large vein, one that would give him more than enough to work with, even if he was surrendering a third of the ore he acquired to the owner. He took the time to wheel out the extra rubble on the ground first, to make sure he wouldn't run out of space before he would start on the vein. While the previous hunk of ore was merely a large gathering, this was a full on vein of ore, allowing him to get enough to start actually practicing. Loading the few chunks he already had into the wheelbarrow, he started taking heavy swings at the thick ore, watching his pick bounce more than pierce, but seeing it still start to fracture and crack into much more manageable pieces. He ended up having to make multiple trips for the ore, ending up with three full wheelbarrows of iron ore. Back to the shop he would go, one at a time, until all three were there, and he would retrieve the Blacksmith for his inspection. Needless to say, the blacksmith was stunned by the sheer amount he had retrieved by himself, but, a deal was a deal. While he did check the iron to make sure it was all legitiamtely ore, and no stone mixed in to pad the numbers, he admitted it was completely legit. He wheeled the two wheelbarrows into the front of the store, where he could properly inspect them for different uses, while Conchobar took his own into the back, where he could fire up the forge and see what he could start with.
Starting up the forge was going to be quite the annoying process, as it would take quite a while in order for it to heat up to the appropriate amount. While this DID give him time to relax his arms from the long mining expedition, and prepare himself for the work at the forge itself. He was at least given all of the supplies he would need to make the basic items he wanted for practice. There was an anvil with a large hammer, there was a kiln for heating metal for work, as well as water for quenching the metal. There were other tools as well, mostly for aesthetics, but get a hammer, and a way to heat the metal, you can make most anything. Of course, the only additional thing was a small box of whetstones, and a grindstone for sharpening weapons. This was good. This meant he could continue working alone, at his own pace... for the most part. He still had to surrender the forge to the owner whenever he needed it, but if it was already lit, that meant that he shouldn't take too much time. And after all, he was creating free merchandice for the shop, so that gave the owner insentive to leave him alone. Not that he was against the black smith checking in on him, or that he thought he was above the owner for one reason or another, no no, not by any means. He just hated getting into the groove of something and then being forced to stop. As far as the blacksmith himself goes, Conchobar would actually love it if he came by to give him some advice. He always appreciated good critique no matter the source, so long as it genuinely was good critique. There was a fine line between critiqueing something, and insulting it, and unfortunately, there are too many people who didn't even realize there was a difference. They would rip and tear apart things people did, and call it 'critique' and to make matters worse, the people recieving this 'critique' didn't even know any better either. They would take the hate and insults and think thats what they were supposed to recieve. Thats like opening a gift box and finding dog poop, but being okay with it because you thought thats what was supposed to happen. It really isn't. Conchobar knew the difference though. If someone is giving you information that is designed to make you improve, no matter how positive or negative it is, then it is legitmate critique. However, when something has no use, offers no ways to improve, either by example or by advice, then it was just hate, drivle not to be taken seriously, ignored if at all possible. That being said, there were some gifted people out there who were able to look past hateful comments and draw critique from them, but they were few and far between, and even then, that didn't justify them recieivng insults instead of critique.
Time would pass slowly for the spell sword as he watched a small thermometer-esque device show when the furnace was hot enough to begin working, standing when it was finally time. Blacksmithing was far from a rapid task, and first thing he had to do was get the ore melted down and the impurities removed. One at a time he would begin unloading the large wheelbarrow, watching as the metal and stone soon started to turn bright red, and soon began to melt. As soon as he had the molten iron, he would be able to cast it into ingots, and from there, he could let them cool, and finally start working. He couldn't do anything complicated first, even if he was well versed on the how. He had to wait for his level to be higher. That meant, at least to him, that he should start on small things like nails or something. Then he could work his way up to weapons.... or maybe stick to the mundane. Making armor plates would be nice, and simple, or metal plates and cups, though those may be more complicated than they're worth. Nails were often used for apprentices, though, so thats where he would start.. when he was done casting at least. He very well may have overdone it with the iron, as he could be working for a month straight before he used all of it. but that was a good thing. You always want more, rather than less. And after all, he wanted experience, so why not have too much? A small smirk came to his face as he poured his seventh ingot, and decided to stop, at least for the moment. If he needed more, he could make it, but he was so excited to actually get started, he didn't mind breaking it up. And if it was as tiring as he expected it to be, then he could probably use the excuses to take a break. With the iron cast into ingots, he would start stacking them up on the side of the work bench as he would take a metal-saw, and start hacking away at the ingots, to get them into smaller and smaller pieces. There was no need to heat the whole ingot if only making nails, so he thought it would be best if they were cut up into smaller pieces. As for the metal shavings, he would sweep them into a small bowl, so he could re-melt them another time. The Wolfhair would be left with a few dozen small iron bricks. One at a time, he would take them and place them in the nearby forge in order to super-heat them to be bright red, before using tongs to bring them back onto the bench, and use a crafters' hammer to tap it into a very thin needle, using a wedge to split it in half, and then tapping on one of each of the ends to flatten it out. He would then drop both nails into the quenching bucket, and let them sink. The bucket wasn't very deep, so it wouldn't be any effort to reach in and pull them out with the tongs, examining his first creation.
"Not bad... Probably more brittle than anything used professionally, but this would be effective for small projects..." He would hear a voice say, turning to look at the Blacksmith coming to check on him. "Oh, sorry about that, I didn't see you there." The wolfhair would remark, smiling politely at him as he would hand one of the nails to the blacksmith for further examining.
"You've got the idea right. The rest comes with practice. Keep at it, and I might actually be able to sell some of the things you make." The blacksmith said with a hearty laugh. Admittedly, the owner of the shop was wary when Conchobar first made his proposition, but he wanted to believe after making good on the first part of his deal, and bringing such a large amount of ore with him, that the blacksmith would be treating him more appropriately. He took the jest for what it was, nodding as he would throw a few more wedges of ingot into the furnace, working on them each one at a time. He did his best to make each of the nails identical to each other, dropping them into the quenching bucket, but moving to the next in the series before completing and starting over again. He continued this rhythm until he reached for another wedge, and there were no more left. He started pulling out the nails, laying them out on the workbench, and examining them, seeing just how his handiwork was. He was not too pleased to see how few were the same length, as well as a number of them having imperfections that would cause them to be too brittle to use. That wasn't good, but it was better that he made these mistakes first, before he got too cocky or something. He took the nails he determined to be good enough for use and set them aside, before he would scoop the rest of the nails into the bowl of metal shavings, to be remelted later. He would take another of the ingots and see if he could have an easier time with making an actual weapon. He had seen many examples of how it would be done, and he had more than enough tools to do it. Reaching to one of the other Ingots, he took a metal saw and cut it in half, knowing he didn't need THAT much metal. He heated it up as he took a moment to determine just which hammer he was going to need, selecting on a medium sized one, and retrieving the metal from the forge, he started hammering it out flat. He knew the shape he was going for, a simple single edged curved dagger, with the handle being full tang. With the heat and light of the forge on his face, and the rhythmic tappings of the hammer on hot metal, he started losing track of time. He didn't know how long he was on that dagger, but he was sure it would have been made at least three times over by the time he himself finished with the dagger, but even then, it wasn't the best of quality... or even finished. He then had to make his way over to the grind stone to work on the edge, slowly grinding it to a shiny edge. The top of the blade and the handle were crude, but it had its own charm to it, somehow. It was unrefined in its own way. He would need to add a leather strap around the 'handle' so that it wouldn't cause injury to wield, but other than that, it was functional for sure.
The next few hours he spent working with other daggers, attempting different designs and different shapes, all in the effort to try to 'learn the hard way' but eventually, when you don't know what you're doing, you seem to grow unsure of yourself in the worst of ways. This was when Conchobar took a small break from the forge and went outside. He had no idea how long he had been in there, but it was dark outside. There were some nearby training dummies where potential customers could test new weapons before purchase, or the blacksmith would be able to test to see if they had been properly repaired. He had four daggers with him, one was straight edged, one was curved, and two were straight edged and double bladed. He didn't need to take on a battle stance or anything, taking the daggers, he would test them out, swinging them hard against the dummies, and watching to see how they preformed. The first dagger he made, the curved edge, worked, and did decent damage, but it took heavy points to durability, even from just one strike. That wasn't good. The second dagger snapped after it landed a good blow. That was very bad. The other two were somewhere in the middle. The damage dealt was mediocre, but they weren't just broken immediately. Was that showing progress? The male couldn't tell as he took some time to relax out in the evening, watching the stars.
This whole new world was strange to the wolfhair. While he had based many different mythologies upon this character, none of those mythologies didn't exist in this world, so did it matter? Was there any purpose to it? Sure, the occassional adventurer might get the reference with the name Conchobar or Aegis, but who would know that he chose to be a Wolfhair Berserker to reference Ulfednhar? Or that he chose spell sword as an homage to the magical equipment of yore? In the future, he wanted to be able to make weapons, and perhaps even forge a blade to mimic the mythical Caladbolg, but even then... did it matter? He could strut around as the king of Ireland all he wanted, but if it wasn't something anyone knew, it didn't seem to matter...
Unless he was the king of Ireland... A thought occured to him. He was aware it was completely possible to purchase and own different locations, at obscene prices, but those were in cities. What about if he were to do it in the wilderness? Would it be possible that he could just flat-out build a new city and rule it? This world was based upon the real world, just being half the size. That meant there was still an Ireland... The thoughts continued in his head, about the possibility of going to the wilderness and conquering it, of becoming the King of the country, and renaming it Ireland for himself... Sure, it sounded like a fantasy, but they were constantly able to do brand new things that were otherwise not possible, so why couldn't he conquer a country? Granted, there was absolutely sure to be an obscene number of bosses, and it was quite possible that it would be required to be a raid or even of some kind, but this was still an idea that seemed to latch onto Conchobars mind. Ruling over Ireland as the actual King. Of course, he was sure it would draw the attention of other players, but this wasn't meant to be some kind of power trip, he didn't want to take over the world, he just wanted... Well, okay, so it might have been a bit of a power fantasy, but not with any true malicious intent. He didn't want to subjugate anyone, and he wouldn't given the opportunity. He didn't even need to completely conquer ireland, as there were sure to be monsters that would otherwise not be able to be 'removed'. He just needed to either find out if there was a city, and if there wasn't, make his own. Sure, it could be expanded, but he didn't have to kill everything. After all, it would be quite unfortunate if they were forced to go to a different country every time they wanted to farm. They just needed enough so that they could live on their own.
As the ideas continued to form, he was immediately distracted by the sight of the sun rising. Was it morning already? How long had he been out here? Did he merely come out here close to dawn or had he been out here the whole evening? He didn't know, and he couldn't tell. He just stood up and made his way back into the forge so that he could work on his daggers. They were damaged now, and as much as creating new things were important, it was also very vital that they were capable of repairing equipment as well. He started with the dagger that was merely damaged, his curved blade. He started off by taking the shavings and nails and melting them down, so he would have an easier medium to work with, before he applied a moderate amount of the liquid metal to the blade. This resulted in it being almost competely dull and ugly looking, but it would give him more than enough metal on the weapon to work with. Back on the grindstone, he would grind against the thick layer of additional metal, slowly whittling it down until it was a smooth, sharp edge again. Checking his handiwork, it was clear how inefficient he was, because even after so much work, it was only mostly recovered, still having a few points of durability left on it. But that was a matter for another time, because he was mostly focused on working with the dagger that had snapped in half. This meant it was poor quality for one reason or another, but if he could fix it, it would be important, because broken equipment is harder to fix than damaged equipment. He started with the liquid metal he had on standby, fitting the dagger into a mold, and pouring some of the liquid metal over the broken metal. He would then need to wait for it to cool but that was hardly important. He Needed it to be fixed the correct way, and that meant not cutting corners. When the metal had cooled, he took one of the whetstones and slowly began shaving away at the metal. He couldn't use the grindstone because he needed this done evenly, across the whole blade, to make sure that no part of it was left overly weak. A glaring flaw in a weapon was... Well, it was a glaring flaw. He couldn't answer as to just how long he had been working on it, but the blade looked brand new, and the interface rated it at 100% durability.. granted, 100% durability of an item durability of two wasn't much to be said, but still, it meant he succeeded.
The next project he wanted to work on was something involving armor. He heated a full ingot until it was red hot, and he took a large hammer, and went to work. He could't make a true suit of armor, missing a lot of items such as leather for straps, but he could work on armor plates, and they could be used to fix real pieces of armor. He worked on a simple plate at first, merely a generic one, being large and square, but flat. This would allow it to be easily molded to fit another kind of armor, without it having to worry about being 'too specific'. The initial plate was fine and dandy, and it wasn't that hard, either. In fact, for the sake of repetition, he ended up using the rest of his ingots making more and more plates. The best part was they weren't 'full' construct, meaning they could still be reforged with little issue. He was sure the old man would be able to find good use in them. But that left him with no more ingots, forcing him to take a break and refill his stock, waiting for them to melt in the furnace. But, he needed this break, as his arms had started to burn from the repitition and heavy use of the heavy hammers. The recoil from striking the metal over and over again was starting to wear on him, so he needed to at least attempt to let them recover. At least he knew he was getting a serious work out by doing this kind of work. It would probably help him in the long run when fighting, building up his stamina and his strength, for stronger and stronger hits. Sure, he was a sorcerer, still, and he relied on his enchantments, but they themselves weren't as powerful as actual spells, so he needed to make sure that his physical attacks are powerful as well. While the class he chose was certainly viable, he was going to have to work really hard to make sure it actually worked properly, else he would quickly fall behind... and if he fell too far behind, he wouldn't be able to even attempt that nagging idea of ruling an entire country as the king... Oh that would be so nice... Actually have purpose with the name of Conchobar... But he had a long way to go, and he wouldn't get there by slacking off. The metal had sufficiently melted, and he would start to cast it again as he started daydreaming a bit on just what he would do with a country all to his own. He would be a fair ruler, he figured, because otherwise they would leave... It was a lot to think about, but at the same time, he needed to be careful not to let himself get too caught up on the semantics. If he ruled the country, he would have earned it the hard way, which meant he couldn't take the easy route in the beginning. After the first ingot was cool enough to work, he started working on a shield. Just a small buckler, but this was certainly going to require multiple ingots. He started first with the basic framework, for which the other plates would fit into. The framework would eventually fall into place as he started heating the other ingots, and began hammering them into the appropriate shapes. It looked like a total of five ingots would be used for this particular project, but it would probably be very useful in the long run. After all, with a name like "Aegis" you couldn't have terrible shields.
When he finished hammering out the different sections for the shield, he would have to take some extra time to make sure they were formed together, as to not have obvious brittle edges. It would be quite a terrible shield if it split in four pieces from a well placed kick, after all. Conchobar would end up working on the shield for a few hours, before taking a look at his handiwork. Given what he knew about actual metal crafting, and actual ancient shields, he could say, without a shadow of a doubt, that this shield was complete crap. By every definition! It was poorly balanced, didn't look good, still had obvious weak points that could be taken advantage of, the handle for holding the shield was off center, making it even more unwieldy... Really, he should be ashamed that he had created it... but a part of him wasn't. He made this. It was a piece of crap, sure, but he had actually made it. And that meant that he could start climbing his way to the top. He knew he had a long way to go before he was able to make anything worth having... but it wasn't a bad place to be. He had gotten himself started, and once the ball was rolling, he'd keep it that way. However, he also was wasting his iron with all these failed attempts, and he figured he should help the blacksmith who owned the shop by at least giving him some useable items... which got him back to Nails. He would work on the nails most, because they were simple enough to make many of, but they required enough skill to be able to perfectly replicate his work. He would need to be able to make the same identical nail over and over again. Once he could do that, then he could start working on bigger and better things. As per the usual and par for the course, Conchobar was unaware just how long he had been working. But he made each nail, two at a time. After the first half dozen, he realized how annoying fishing them out of the water was, and ended up making a make-shift net, to sit at the bottom of the quenching bucket, so that, when he was done, or it started getting too full, he could just pull all the nails out by the net, and empty them into a bowl for ease of access. By the time he was done, he would have emptied out the entire wheelbarrow of Iron Ore, and made way too many nails. What he was proud of, though, was that, by the end of it, he had succeeded. The nails were almost all identical, with the few oddballs being able to be explained by impurities in the metal. This not only meant he could recognize how the metal was shaping, easier, but he had learned much more control over his hammer swings, able to make them do the exact same swing over and over as long and as many times as he needed.
With that, though, he was out of workable metal. The only thing he could really see to do at this point was to disassemble the failures. The shield was the biggest offender, in his opinion, and to prove it to himself, he took his hammer and swung it hard, hitting it right in the center. That should have been the strongest point, and yet the entire thing collapsed into a pile of poorly worked metal plates. Shaking his head, piled all the unsuable stuff into the wheelbarrow. He couldn't make any use of it at this point, but he knew that a skilled blacksmith like the one that owned the shop, would probably be able to use the scrap to repair something, or even turn it into something genuinely useable. But, he was done. He had used up all the metal, and he didn't have much more use of being here, so he would check on the Blacksmith. He seemed much more friendly now than before. Perhaps he really appreciated someone who was working so hard to improve their craft, and that he, as an adventurer, really wasn't just trying to swindle him, or find an easy way out. He had gathered ore himself, he had worked the forge himself, and he had worked the metal himself. If anything, he was happy with the Adventurer. Conchobar showed what he had done for him, curious of critique. Minding the items in the wheelbarrow, he got about as harsh of a critique form the person of the land as he had given to himself. These were scrap quality, nothing else. But then he showed off the nails he had made. These he took more time to examine, trying to find flaws in them, not in an attempt to berate or bring Conchobar down, but that the wolfhair had an untrained eye, or at least, not one as trained as his, and therefor, wouldn't necissarily be able to see all the flaws. After a while of examining them, he separated the nails into three piles. The first pile were nails that were good enough to sell, ones that he could, and would, put on the shelves for customers. This was the smallest pile, but it was to be expected. The second pile was nails that, while he wouldn't sell them, he felt they were good enough quality to use nonetheless, and would keep them on hand for use around the shop. The third and largest pile could easily be guessed, as it was the rejects. He took the time to explain the different flaws with them, spending more time on the subtle flaws that he would have easily missed, than he would on the glaring ones that Conchobar was more than obviously aware of. The male very much appreciated this, though, because without knowing what he did wrong, how could he know what he did right? He learned a lot, talking with the blacksmith, and he felt like, should he go for a second around, he would do much better. But, he had spent enough time here. The shopkeeper said that, should he wish to return, under the same conditions, he would be more than welcome. That was reassuring, for sure. He had a guarenteed place to practice his art. A place where he could get iron, and work a forge. Sure, he wouldn't be able to keep any of it, but this was for practice, not for profit.
As he left, Conchobar realized that this had been a good experience all around. He had learned about mining, and a thing or two about locating the ore, he had worked a forge and furnace, something that would surely prove useful in the future, and he actually made functional items. Sure, they were nails, but even the greatest blacksmiths start somewhere... Okay, not all of them, he was pretty sure Hephaestus was literally born able to make legendary pieces of equipment. But he wasn't a god! He was a.. no, he wasn't a king, at least, not yet. He was just a man, with a plan. He needed to improve his skills, both his subclasses and his main classes. While he was sure he would be in plenty of combat, grinding to make his main class better, his subclasses would be much more difficult... okay, his Blacksmithing skill would be more difficult. Berserker would level up through use as well, so really, that let him focus all of his non-combat time into the forge. Once he was a high enough level to start making his own equipment, it would be smooth sailing. He would take the items he got from monsters, turn them into weapons and armor, and then sell them. He was his own one man business! Sure, that business plan wasn't necissarily the best, but he was determined to be extremely useful, no matter where he was. The first thing to do, though, was raise his Character level. Slimes and boars didn't drop any useful supplies, so he would have to increase his combat capabilities to start gaining items to use. This time training his blacksmithing skill was more proof of concept than anything. He didn't walk away with anything but experience, and now he would be able to have use of that experience. He had a better eye for quality, and would be able to at the very least repair the equipment he does have without too much issue. Fixing a crack in a shield was much easier than making one from scratch, after all! He wouldn't be making any of his own gear any time soon, that was for sure, but he didn't have to. Early levels would provide him with all the gear he needed, letting him get comfortable with the setting, and then he would be able to start working on bigger projects. Right now the best he could make were a few dozen good quality nails, which wasn't saying much, but at least it was something. It was progress, and progress he was glad to make.
A thought occured to him, of the possibility of failure, and what he would do in the face of it. What if the Spellsword build fell off late game, and he wouldn't be able to progress to even level 70, much less all the way to level 100? What if he couldn't be the blacksmith he needed to be? What if he couldn't gather up enough force to conquer a kingdom for himself? These were heavy thoughts, and truth be told, it was better to have them than to not. Being aware of the possibility of failure was good, as long as it didn't consume you. If you know it's possible to fail, then you're able to prepare for it. However, if you find yourself invulnerable, and undefeatable, you would be knocked off your high horse faster than you could realize what hit you. That didn't stop the thoughts from being unsettling, though. Being useless, being a waste, being a weight around everyone's ankle... It was by no means a pleasant thought for Conchobar to be thinking. But he wouldn't let it get him down. Not by any means. These were thoughts that could happen, but wouldn't. He would fight until the ends of time to make sure that his ideals were seen to, that his dreams were seen through, and that his desires be made reality.
Near the edge of the clearing that the blacksmith's shop stood, he would turn around and look over at where he had come. He walked in here rather big eyed and bushy tailed. Now, he had a much more level head on his shoulders. Granted, he still had delusions of owning an entire kingdom, but he at least wasn't delusional enough to think it would be easy. He had trouble making a simple dagger, how would he conquer a nation? He wouldn't thats how... So he would have to strive to improve himself, make himself better. He had his plans. Get stronger, to be better at blacksmithing. Be a better blacksmith to have better gear to adventure with. It was a nice little circle. One bit of effort pushed towards the next in a nice little dominoes effect. Sure, he had a long way to go, but that wasn't to say he was going to stop. Every step he made would be a foothold to carry himself towards his goals. He wouldn't surrender an inch of his progress for anything. He was Conchobar Aegis! He was going to do great things! This spurred him on, turning to march away with fervor, ready to get started on his dreams of being a Master Blacksmith, of wielding a weapon worthy of being named Caladbolg, forged by his very hand, and weild a shield titled "Aegis" for the most appropriate reasons, of making forward progress of ruling Ireland as a true king, much like his namesake. It was a long road, one that would probably get longer and longer as time went on, but one that he was happy to start marching down. Every step he made would be one of progress and he wouldn't ever stop pushing forward. And why would he? The rode ahead is always rocky and rough with the challenges of the unknown, while the road behind is wet and muddy with the persperation of effort. If he let himself start sliding back even an inch, he would slide down the slippery path all the way down to the bottom. Then he would have to mire through the memories of his failures, paranoia of sliding down again like he had before clinging to him, until he got back to where he was, where everything was dry, but rocky. This time, though, it would be an even more slick path behind him. And every failure would make it more and more difficult to recover. He wasn't going to let that happen, though. He was going to perservere, and not give up an inch. Not for anyone. This a big smile on his face, the wolf hair sorcerer would take one final look at the small forge in the middle of a valley, and the surprisingly large iron mine he had worked so tirelessly in. He hoped the Shop owner would find good use with all the iron ore he had brought him, though that was by no means an implication that he would have ever let it go to waste. Conchobar... merely wished the best upon the old man, and hoped that the ore would save him the effort of mining it up himself, letting him spend more time making even better quality equipment. With that thought in mind, Conchobar turned and walked away, back towards the main city of Londinium. There, he should be able to rest in an inn for a few days with the funds he had collected, and then he would be able to start on his plan by grinding on the local monsters. Small steps, but important ones.
