Evren had taken out the different metals that were stored in the barrels of the workshop. There was mithril, adamantium and a new red colored metal called scarletite, which in terms of hardness and conductivity sat between the other two. He wanted to make the sword from adamantium but forging with adamantium required he practice with it. It appeared you could make alloys from the different metals, but the final result would never be better than the original parts, or a different metal which boasted similar properties.
Adamantium was a difficult metal to work with. It required high temperatures to properly forge, and even at temperatures just below its melting point, it was a hard metal. In order to get it up to temperature, you had to first heat it to the highest temperature you could get it to in a forge, then use the magic spell 'heat' to increase its temperature to within working temperature. This was a very inefficient way to raise the temperature as once you started working with the metal itself, you had to pour magic into it. Many blacksmiths would have an assistant for this process.
Evren looked around inside the forge, nope he was still alone. He had finished how he wanted the sword to be made. Like his previous one, he would use his old unit symbol in the pommel, and he would engrave the name 'War Dog' on the blade. The final design for the sheath had been decided upon and it closely resembled the design on the quiver. He wasn't very artistic, so copying and modifying was the extent of his capabilities.
The last thing is making a wooden mockup of the sword and guard for the mold. Like the previous sword, the quillons of the guard would be in the shape of claws, but he had gotten better at the claw shape, plus the quillons would be angled a bit more slightly forward to make the sword easier to swing.
That would have to wait though, it snowed last night, and he needed to shovel his path around the town. When he got to the northern gate, he felt something approaching the town from the forest. He climbed the tower to get to the top of the wall but had to dig through a snow drift at the top before he could see what it was. He had focused on it a little bit, but all he could tell was it was bipedal and big.
When he finally got out onto the wall and looked, he could see a giant thing walking through the field. It stood three to four meters tall, had sparce hair covering its body and a big gut. Its face was a bit sloven, brutish and simple looking, and its eyes seemed dimwitted and dazed. Its arms were long and muscular, and it appeared to be dragging a tree trunk along the ground behind it. Evren had read about these monsters before, they were ogres. Thankfully they were usually solidary creatures, but that didn't make them any less dangerous.
Their massive size and strength made them unpredictable. Their speed wasn't the fastest, but when you're swinging a tree around, you don't need to have the top speed. Evren hoped that he'd be able to kill it with ten arrows as he thought the hunting arrows wouldn't be able to penetrate. He ran down the stairs and back to his base as fast as he could without falling from the slippery ground. When he got into the base, he threw his heavy cloak onto the table and grabbed his bow and quiver, and his dagger.
As he ran back to the northern gate, he slung his quiver over his shoulder, and cinched it into place. He stopped once along the way to string the bow, then kept running. He didn't put an arrow on the string yet, as he had slipped a few times and didn't want to chance losing an arrow. When he got to the tower, he sprinted up the stairs to the top and out onto the wall. The ogre had one grubby finger stuffed up its nose as it trudged along in the snow.
Evren took aim and let an arrow fly, hitting the ogre in the center of the chest. The ogre stopped and looked down at the arrow sticking out of its chest and swiped its hand at it. Evren heard the arrow snap, even from the distance away as he was. "Crap," he said, "I don't even know what kind of wood those were made out of."
The ogre roared and began charging at Evren, but with the thickness of the snow it didn't move much faster than it had before. Evren shot another arrow at it, this time hitting its left leg above the knee. The ogre cried out again but didn't stop charging. Evren could tell the arrow had given it a limp. Evren took aim again and aimed for the shoulder carrying the log this time. When it hit, the ogre's grip on the log loosened and it fell to the ground. The ogre ignored the log though and continued on.
Evren's next two shots were aimed at its belly, this time they had sunk in much deeper than the one in its chest. Evren looked over his shoulder at the five special arrows remaining in the quiver. He had thought to bring the hunting arrows with him, but ultimately decided against it because monsters typically have tougher skin than the hunting arrows could pierce. Unless it was an orc or a goblin, he didn't even want to try.
Even drew two arrows, placing one of them in the two fingers of his left hand and approached the edge of the wall. The ogre had gotten close and would be at the wall soon. Evren took aim at the ogre and fired, the ogre had blocked the shot with its hand, but its hand was now pierced by the arrow. Quickly drawing back the other arrow, he fired at the neck of the ogre, striking, and sinking the arrow in deep.
The ogre roared in pain at the double arrow attack and swung its hand with the arrow in it about wildly. Evren drew another arrow and before he shot it, he remembered the bowstring was made from some alloy of mithril and he wanted to try infusing the bow with magic during a shot.
Evren took a breath and focused his magic in through his hands into the bow. The bowstring glowed a dim shade of green, and the bow began to seem to glow green from within. It seemed the draw weight had increased significantly, and that if he continued to put magic into the bow, it would tear his fingers off, so he let the arrow fly.
The arrow sunk into the chest considerably deeper than the first arrow had, making the ogre falter. Evren got excited about the previous shot and grabbed one of the two arrows remaining. He repeated the actions of the previous shot, and when it got so heavy, he wasn't sure he could hold on any more, he quickly poured as much magic as he could into the bow as he released the string.
The arrow seamed to disappear, at the same time, a hole in the ogre's head blossomed a spray of blood. The ogre tottered for a moment before falling flat on its back. Evren stared at the ogre for a while before he said, "Damn it! It probably broke another arrow." Evren made his way down the tower and back towards his base. He unstrung the bow and left it, grabbing his sword and his heavy cloak. He headed towards the east gate, digging his way there, and on the outside of the gate once he finally got the door open.
He dug a path around the wall to the ogre, only deep enough to prevent snow from getting into his boots. When he arrived at the ogre, he began removing the arrows, cleaning them off and putting them back into the quiver. He spent some time pushing the ogre on its side so he could find the arrow underneath, but it wasn't visible. Evren sighed a little bit and followed the ogre's path back to where the broken shaft of the arrow was. He picked it up and walked back to the ogre. When Evren arrived, he pulled out his dagger to get the arrowhead out of the ogre, as well as the magic core.
Before leaving the ogre, he examined the ogre's head. The hole was a clean shot straight through, with some of the fletching torn off and adhering to the wound. He checked again on the ground behind the ogre, as well as the ogre's back to see if he could find the missing arrow, but he was out of luck. Sighing he picked up the shovel and headed back to town.
Along the way he got a chance to look at the magic core. This one was a sickly sort of yellowish green, but still had the pearlescent sheen to it like the other magic cores he had found. It also wasn't as big as the ones he had gotten off the monsters the first night he was in Plinth.
