The next morning I woke up having to piss pretty bad. I didn’t realize a certain part of my body had grown as well. My morning wood was propping a nice size tent with the bed sheets. After emptying my bladder, I had the need to rinse off and empty my hormonal teen bladder. Must say, the little guy will only be called little in jest anymore.
The burrow was empty, I guess dad already left for morning. Grabbing a bit of food out of the pantry. Mostly dried meat and most of what was dried in the pantry was done by me. It lasts months instead of weeks. One star and 2 star beast last about 3 months before going bad. Dried meat of higher ranks can last years. Most won’t do that as consuming their meat fresh has better effects on your body. But not many people in town are strong enough to kill a creature that strong and if they did? Selling it for enough gold to last a few months.
Vince grabbed all of his gear and headed out. He headed to the guild, might as well start getting his beatings from Emmy.
Walking through the door he found Emmy talking to a few guild members. She noticed Vince and pointed to the side exit. I noticed a few of the guild members shiver. walking out the door and into the training ground. The guild’s area took up a quarter of the village. It was the unofficial hub of the town. Out here there were a bunch of weapons that were donated or no longer used, for various reasons. There were also all of the training weapons. There were swords of different shapes and sizes and these were all training swords. They were all designed to be Heavier and to have a thick edge. While it wouldn’t cut you, it would break bones and skin. Bows of different sizes and strengths. Spears of different lengths and weights and a few war hammers. The obstacle course was not as fun as it sounded. Logs were slippery, blunt arrows were shot at you constantly and let’s not forget the ivy that you would fall into. Hell ivy to be exact, it deserved that name. It would make your skin feel like it was on fire for about 10 minutes after contact. Luckily it would go away after that, but as far as I knew, no cure and you just had to embrace the suck for 10 minutes.
Walking over to check out the weapons. Dad brought me here to get the sword I had been using from the donation pile. These were hand me down weapons that were pretty good, but you could find better. You could sell them or donate to the guild and get a credit for donations. With enough credit you could issue a quest and have the guild pay for it or use the credits to buy items from the guild. My dad was a ranger so bow and sword were his weapons of choice and so that was what I was taught.
Walking by I noticed two warhammers. They were pitch black, which usually meant star metal. They were four feet long and each had a massive 8 inch square hammer one side that mushroomed out. One battle ax had a 10 inch ax blade on one side and the other had a thick curved spike that was bladed along the top of the curve. Slamming that into anything would make it regret waking up that day. The downside of the star metal was its weight. Around 7 times heavier than your usual metal. Almost as strong as mythril but ungodly heavy. That’s why very few races used it.
I wanted to test them out. Dad didn’t let me touch anything besides swords and bows when we came here years ago. Grabbing one in each hand and started swinging them around. While they were heavy, it wasn’t uncomfortable to swing them. One thing my Dad drilled into me was just because you can swing it around, doesn’t mean you can wield it properly. Taking a hard swing and trying to stop it was one test. Accuracy in movement with your weapons was another. It still all fell under “control”.
I saw the training dummies a little ways away and a wicked smile crossed my face. These dummies were made of all reinforced materials and enchanted so no need to worry about destroying them.
Warmed up after swinging the hammers around for a few minutes and then started attacking the dummies. They were spread out around 4 to 6 feet apart. I started nailing the targets. Minutes passed by and the flow of the hammers became more smooth. It was becoming easier to start and stop attacks. Spin, slash, stab, and bash targets. Coming to a stop, I looked to my side and noticed 4 dummies had shattered and fallen apart.
I looked behind me and saw Emmy sitting in a chair watching me. I walked over to her and just had a look that said I was in love.
“You can tell your Dad that you are dropping the sword. I’m not breaking his heart.”
“Yeah, these are really nice. Do you think I could take them?” I was swinging them around and playing with them like they were made of wood.
“They have been here for at least 40 years. No one was keen on playing with thousand pound hammers. They were too short to effectively be used by two hands and too heavy to be used by a single hand. There are always exceptions I guess.” She was staring at me playing with them with a smirk on her face.
Standing up she walked toward the bows and I followed her over. “I am guessing your ungodly strength is from your special awakening. The strength you are showing is not uncommon in certain races like Barbarians and trolls in your realm but they are usually quite older than you. I know you have read quite a bit but know this. Just because you are in the Heavenly realm, doesn’t mean someone in the mortal realm who has been stuck for years can’t kill a heavenly realm cultivator. Arrogance will kill you faster than anything Vince so stay humble. Now grab a bow that you like. Your old bow is a toy in your hands now and no longer worth bringing around. I want to see how far you can accurately shoot now.”
Emmy loved archery and her skills were amazing. There had to be close to a hundred bows on the racks. I wasn’t a fan of the short bows so I didn’t even bother looking at them. They had about 40 medium (hunters) and longbows. I started grabbing and testing the poundage of the pull. You wanted to find one that was strong but not so strong that you couldn’t hold the pull for a few minutes. Eventually I found a hunter's bow that was good enough for me. I grabbed a stack of arrows and followed Emmy to the range. We spent the next 2 hours shooting the bow. My max range was 370 yards. After that the arrows lost penetration power and could easily be dodged. I was hitting the moving targets at 200 yards but the Guild’s moving targets ended at that range. I could see clearly past 500 yards, and if I concentrated, I could see their face with details at that range. I could see the rope that wrapped around the target dummies at 500 yards.
It was time for me to head home by the time we finished. I didn’t realize I was playing with the hammers for so long. I didn’t break the training dummies instantly but with constant pounding of the hammers. The ax and bladed spike didn’t dull any during the training. I will need to visit Uncle later to see if he can do some basic enchants on them.
I left through the side of the training ground and made my way home but after making it halfway home I passed the food vendors and I could smell frost bear meat. Once you have it, you can never forget it. It was either amazing or turned your guts inside out. It had a sweet taste but left a cooling sensation in your mouth. I absolutely loved it and luckily I was great friends with the vendor.
“Hey Uncle Jeff, can I get a large plate of the frost bear roast.”
A heavily muscled, short, and broad shouldered dwarf spun around. “How do you know me?”
“What?? You don’t even recognize your favorite customer. Jeez Uncle Jeff, you hurt me.” I had a shit eating grin across my face as I talked nonsense.
It took him a second before it dawned on him, “Holy shit! What happened to you laddy? Did this happen during your awakening? I had mentioned to the old lady I hadn’t seen you around a few days ago.” The shock was all over his face.
Although not related by blood, he always looked out for me and I had started calling him Uncle when I was 8 years old.
“Yeah, the awakening went a little sideways. Ended up absorbing more than I should have and this was the result. I went to the guild for training with Emmy today and picked out two new weapons. Dad is going to be pissed when I tell him the sword is going on the back burner.”
“Oh really? Did you pick up a spear?” Jeff was looking and didn’t see any poles sticking leaning against his stand.
I reached down and lifted my two hammers. I spun them around in my hand showing off my new babies.
“Holy crap son! Be careful with those things. I don’t want you to destroy my stand. I can’t believe you can wield them. Hand me one of them.” I handed him the axe hammer. “I’m still waiting to figure out good names for them.”
“This is a really nice weapon, you will need to take care of them.” Jeff was handling the 1000 lbs hammer as if it were a baby. Spinning it around and looking at it with eyes that were staring at a lost lover.
“What do you know about these hammers Uncle Jeff?”
“These are dwarven battle hammers. Some dwarves would make these as it would show their love for their two favorite activities. The hammer for smithing and the axe or in that one's case spike, would represent fighting. This one’s name is Gwynwin and hand me the other one.”
Handing it over to him, he spun it around a few times before stopping.
“This one’s name is Brawlyn. If you go to Dim Kolduhr you might find the Masters who crafted them. They could have come from further away but who knows. Dwarves don’t name just any weapon. Only weapons that blacksmiths consider perfect will have a name given to them. It takes an agreement of 10 master blacksmiths for the weapon to be recognized. No dwarven blacksmith wants to embarrass himself by taking an inferior weapon out to their peers to be judged and laughed at. Then they are registered with the dwarven kingdom as it’s a badge of honor. An honor for the entire blacksmith family, the village they hail from and for their clan. A blacksmith might only name 2 or 3 weapons in his entire life and us Dwarves live just as long as elves so that will tell you something. Treasure these weapons son, and don’t you dare have them enchanted. You will be pissing on the blacksmith who created them who considered them perfect.”
Jeff sat Brawlyn down and made me a huge bowl of food and handed it to me. devouring the food, I watched him walk out front and swing Gwynwin around. His face had a solemn look across it. He was swinging it around as if in dance before stopping. “Help yourself son, you can eat for as long as you let me work with her.”
“Thanks!” I hopped around the counter and filled my bowl again. Sitting down again I started watching Uncle Jeff go through the “dance” again. When he swung the hammer, you could hear a crushing noise. It was hard to explain the sound but it sounded like the air was being crushed as opposed to the sound of air being sliced with a sword.
He stopped after 30 minutes before walking back over, handing the hammer back. Stepping in his stall he handed Brawlyn back to me.
“Come by house tomorrow, I’ll have something for you. I can’t tell you how thankful I am for letting me handle such a great weapon son. You might want to keep this information to yourself as well. Not sure what trouble may come your way just for these two. Only a trained Dwarf will find the names on them so you don’t have to fear others finding them. Eat one last bowl and head home, it's getting late.” Uncle Jeff handed me a fresh bowl of the roast. Not waiting around I choked the food down as if it was running away.
“Uncle Jeff, I’ll stop by in the morning.” Waving back to him, I took off heading home. Making it home I found a note inside saying to eat and get cleaned up. I will be heading into the Jaded Forest tomorrow morning with Emmy. I grabbed a big chunk of meat from the pantry and ate half a dried ham. I’ll need to replenish everything I have eaten lately or Mom is going to beat me. Rinsing off in the shower, I passed out when my head hit my pillow.
