“Come on Theo, only five miles back to the shop.” Tahir jogged, at a fair slower pace than his usual, waiting for Theo to catch up. Theo huffed, panting as she moved to catch up. Visibly steaming in the early morning chill.
“Give me a break, Tahir.” she huffed. “You can’t even lose your breath with the wind spirit. It’s not fair. Let’s go slower please?”
Her pleading only got a chuckle out of Tahir. “I’m not even bound to the wind spirit right now. This is just good aura control. You’ll be a pro at it in no time, so don’t stop now.” He’d taken to waking her up in the morning to jog, from the shop to the city gates and back again. A couple dozen miles that might be daunting to the average person, made approachable by aura.
He heard Theo give a frustrated cry behind him, but her footsteps never stopped. As much as she complained, she could make the run the very first day just by her mostly intuitive manipulation of aura. As the days went by, she complained less and less. On the 6th, she could keep up with and nearly outsped him at a couple points. They’d never really discussed it, but now that she got a bit of a handle on it, did Theo have a higher aura pool than Tahir? Even accounting for the growth Tahir had noticed in his, which did confirm the spirits broke him out of his stunted growth, at least while he used them.
He didn’t mention Theo’s aura possibly outstripping his until they reached the shop on the sixth day, where Metilia had brought supplies to finish Tahir’s new blade. After the jog, the praise put a spring in Theo’s step. Which continued as she made some refreshments and joined Tahir and Metilia in the backyard of the building, which housed a greenhouse and a well kept garden. She held onto a tray, and stood next to Tahir as the two of them watched Metilia simply considering a strip of metal, and the pieces that would also become a handle and guard on the ground. She stared for a long time, before standing from her seated position and taking some tea and snacks from Theo’s tray. “Thanks for this. I’m just about to finish up I think.”
“Finish? Here? Without an anvil or, well, a forge?” Tahir didn’t doubt her methods, whatever they were, he just didn’t see how any of the pieces would connect.
Metilia simply smiled. “Just watch.” She finished up her snacking and went to pick up the blade. She held it out in front of her in one hand, and raised a runed hammer she kept nearby with the other. “When Presia created the world, she did so by pulling it from the formless void.” She spoke as if reciting a kind of mantra, or prayer, and Tahir felt waves of heat. “In reverence of the great shape, I forge this blade by pulling from the void as well.” She set the blade down, and it landed on a platform made by magic that held it in place. The blade itself started to glow from intense heat, and then Metilia’s hammer followed suit from magic acting on both of them. She brought the hammer down, and a great shower of sparks erupted when she struck.
“From the formless…” Tahir murmured as he considered her words. He guessed her as a Presia worshiper from her amulet, and bringing together what he knew about the goddess, he filled in the blanks himself. “Oh, with mana.” Persia was also the patron goddess of magic, as mana was said to pull things into reality from the formless void by the user’s will and intent. He watched, a fair distance from the sparks, as Metilia shaped the blade, using magic to compress and fold the metal, before shaping it again and repeating the process. She kept the magic that heated the blade going constantly, and cast more spells to aid with its shape. Her mana pool had to absolutely dwarf his for the amount of magic she could use, though the hammer, seemingly enchanted in the same way that a wand or staff could be, might have helped with the efficiency.
Half an hour later, Metilia cast a spell to create a sizable orb of water, and with a hand conjured from magic, picked up the glowing orange blade and stuck it inside. Tahir flinched back from the curtain of steam that rose, but Metilia casually set down her hammer and began piecing together the handle and guard. “That was a nice change of pace, working out in a garden instead of an empty workshop.
While Tahir watched, entranced by the process, he was able to put a few things together in his mind. About Metilia’s relationship to the collective, and even a bit of Theo’s involvement. He took everything he knew from what he’d heard them tell him, and their expressions whenever they talked about it. Metilia had a massive mana pool that even a mage exhausting their mana every day for years couldn’t scratch. Theo could cast spells with her aura and very well knew about it, but didn’t do it because it all but guaranteed that one of her elements would cause her to go into a meltdown, and she had to work to get her aura under control despite likely having more of it to toss around than what Tahir knew Hurida’s. All of that combined with Metilia’s obvious distaste with the collective despite a desire to continue working for them, and Tahir could come up with a working theory that didn’t sit well with him at all.
Now that her attention was off of the more intense part of the forging, he felt the need to voice his findings. “You worked for the collective so you could raise your mana pool at the leyline crossing.” He stated, and Metilia glancing over quicker than normal all but confirmed it. “And while you were there - someone killed the person working with Theo - the one she was experimenting with, so they could steal and publish their work. That’s why she never got that far in casting spells with aura.”
For several seconds, Tahir could only hear gentle birdsong, the bubbling and boiling of the bubble of water as it cooled down the blade, and Metila’s labored breathing. Though the last one she tried to hide. After what felt like an eternity, Metilia finally spoke. “You might be too good at piecing things together for your own sake.” She said, looking back toward the boiling bubble. “But yes, that is the long and short of it.”
Tahir shrugged at what he could only consider a compliment. “I took your words to heart when you said to keep the collective at arm’s length, since you definitely spoke from personal experience. Understanding where you’re coming from just confirms to me that I made the right choice.”
More silence. Tahir glanced back at Theo, who looked pensive down at her tray. He snapped his attention back to Metilia as she stood up, and made her mage’s hand pull the blade out from the bubble of water and pointed it at him. “I’ll ask you not to pry any further for the time being. It’s…not a story we’re ready to tell just yet. It happened a while ago, but it's still rather raw, so to speak.”
“Done.” Tahir said without a moment’s hesitation. If he did find out anything else, he’ll just have to keep it to himself.
“I appreciate it. Now, here.” The blade she handed him was longer than his previous, single-edged, and had a slight curve to it. He could also see runes running along the side, along with his reflection. It had no guard or handle, so he held the flat end in both of his hands, and felt that if he cupped his palms just slightly too much that it would result in them being cut.
“It’s enchanted?” He asked. When she told him he’d make him a blade, he didn’t expect that she would make him a magical one. Then again, he didn’t know that she forged things almost entirely with magic back then, either.
“To a minor degree.” Metilia clarified. “It should hold up against your aura enhanced swings while you’re bonded to your earth spirit. When fighting with your old blade, I believe you accounted for one but not the other, which led to it accumulating stress and shattering despite you maintaining it. Had it been of better make, it might have held out long enough to notice the issue, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“Might take some getting used to compared to my old sword, but I’ll treasure it.” He held it up to the light, resisting the urge to make a test swing.
“You’ll do no such thing.” Metilia said, and continued at Tahir’s confused expression. “Given a couple of weeks and a couple thousand gold’s worth of components, I could have made you a blade worth treasuring. It’ll work in the short term, but should a better one come along, do not hesitate to replace it.”
“I meant because you made it for me, so I guess I’ll treasure it until you can make me a better one.”
Metilia made to respond, but paused, electing to walk past Tahir and Theo and back into the building. He could hear her calling back to him. “Leave the blade here, I’ll have the sheath and everything ready for you tomorrow when we leave.”
“Alright! Thanks again!” He called back.
Theo held the tray with one hand while another covered a barely concealed smile. “Don’t worry about her, she gets like this when people compliment her work. I don’t think she expected you to like it so much.”
“How could I not? The blade itself looks and feels fantastic, enchantment notwithstanding. But actually watching her make it? I’d heard about Presia devotees creating items in an empty forge, but I’d never really thought about how that had to look. That was art.” After Tahir spoke, he heard a loud thump from inside the shop. Was Metilia still listening? “I’ll…go. Have to make sure everything’s ready anyway.”
“Alright then. Wait! Before you go, is everything alright with the spirit you summoned? I’ve been too caught up in all the aura junk to ask, but you’re not having any problems are you?”
Tahir smiled. “Everything’s fine.” During the week, he had ample opportunity to bond with his spirit, talk to them, and work out how their interaction with his tier zero spirits worked. “That tree is as good as tinder.”
