“So, they’re two days out?” I asked Grey quietly, loud enough so only he could hear. My eyes weren’t on him, though.
They were on Azarus.
Grey, Azarus, and I were in the small forge that this military camp had. Azarus had negotiated for its use from the forge master, a Sculpted wrought from iron by the name of Smelt. Right now, Azarus was doing the actual forge work required for my arm, with the assistance of said forge master. He’d been working on it now since before the sun had come up and seemed to have finished most of it, judging by the bits and bobs he had scattered around on a nearby workbench.
I would have volunteered to help with the forging process, but Azarus had turned me down. He’d told me that he wanted to do this for me, as a repayment of his debt to me.
“What debt?” I’d asked him, completely confused.
Azarus had looked me straight in the eye and said one word. “Addersfield.”
Oh.
I…guess he still felt that he owed me a debt for helping get him out of the Principality. I didn’t really agree with that. We’d all worked together to get out of Addersfield, and away from dwarven lands. If anything, I owed him a debt. I don’t think I’d have ever been able to free myself from bondage without his help. I didn’t feel like there was any sort of debt between us. Apparently, he didn’t agree with that. He was being characteristically stubborn about this, so I let it drop.
Thus, Azarus was doing the forge work. I trusted him, though. Last night, Grey, Honoka, Azarus, and I had spoken about the way that we wanted the arm to actually attach to my body and had come up with a pretty interesting idea. Azarus had told me he could do it, so I’d given the go-ahead on the entirely different method than we’d initially planned on. Honoka had even said this sounded less risky, as far as the operation went. Azarus had taken a few measurements of my stump, and that was that.
Grey had only just joined me, actually. Like he’d promised Azarus, he had been working with my dwarven friend for a large part of the forging process. I hadn’t been inside to hear, but I’d seen Grey patiently explain how to forge and work Mithril to an interested Azarus and an enthralled Smelt. It didn’t seem like Azarus had needed much help, though. After a few tries, he’d seemingly gotten the process down just fine, leading to Grey exiting the forge to stand with me.
I guess Azarus hadn’t had enough faith in his own abilities.
Grey and I were standing just outside of the forge while Azarus and Smelt worked. We had finished the design work for the arm’s enchantment, and now we just needed the physical components. Then, once they were done, we would just need to inscribe and enchant them. At that point, after fully assembling the arm, all that would be needed was the actual surgery to graft it to my body and soul.
You know. Only the most dangerous part.
No biggie.
“Yes,” Grey said, nodding to my question. “The scouts have encountered the main host. For now, they’re just barely out of far-eye range. If we wish to finish your arm, then we’ll need to be done by at least tomorrow. From what I’ve been informed, the main host isn’t intending to stay at Silvercrest for long. Only a few hours, so they can purchase additional supplies from the town. The camp is intending to immediately start breaking up when they reach us.”
“All right, that…still sounds doable,” I said slowly, eyes tracking the rise and fall of Azarus’s smithing hammer. I didn’t even flinch at the ringing of metal on metal that echoed out of the forge. I may not use a hammer for my own forging, but I was used to the noise by now. I cast a gaze over at Grey. “We’ll have to bug Honoka about being ready for the operation.”
I was startled by the feeling of a sharp finger jabbing me in the ribs. I yelped, spinning around to see who had assaulted me.
Even though I already had a suspicion…
Sure enough, Honoka was standing behind Grey and I, smirking at me. Sylvia was with her, smiling at me almost apologetically.
“No need to pester me, boy,” Honoka said, amused by my reaction. “I’ve already set up an appropriate surgery station in the Healer’s tent. I even went and recruited an assistant in that fox boy you rescued. Whatshisname, Reyault.”
“Renauld,” I corrected automatically. So, Renauld was going to help then? I’d have to go and thank him later.
Honoka waved me off irritably. “Eh, whatever. Point is, you better be grateful, boy,” She said, jabbing me in the chest with the same finger that had goosed my ribs. “I’m meant to be teaching Sylvia here the basics of Cultivation Arts, but no. Instead, I’m running around preparing for your damn fool operation.”
“Yes, yes,” Grey said dryly. “Far be it from me to prevent education, but I’m sure Sylvia doesn’t mind it being postponed for a medical procedure.”
Sylvia shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I can wait a few days for my instruction to begin. This is more important.” She smiled slightly in my direction. I returned it, glad for the support. I’d been a little awkward around Sylvia the day after our little…session, but I’d gotten over it. There was no use stressing out over things like that, especially right now. If she had meant that kiss in a certain way, then I trusted Sylvia to say so.
Our little group conversation was cut short by Azarus, appearing in the doorway of the forge. We turned to face him, to see that the soot-stained and exhausted dwarf had a triumphant look on his broad features. “It’s done,” He said heavily, with a breath. “C’mon, I’ll show ye how it works.” He walked back into the forge, with the rest of us following.
Azarus led us to the bench where a mass of finished parts lay. On it, I could see what looked to be bones wrought from solid Mithril, and a plethora of golden shell pieces. I tilted my head when I saw them, instantly understanding the idea behind what Azarus had been after.
“So,” Azarus said, folding his arms and nodding at the table. “Essentially, the thing is going to work like a real arm would. It’s not going to work like some kind of solid hunk of metal. Nah, that would be too unwieldy. Instead, you’ve got all the individual bones,” He pointed to three separate piles of Mithril ‘bones’, each seeming to be for the forearm, wrist, and hand. I counted exactly twenty-nine of them. “Which make the skeleton of the arm. Now, like we talked about, all that is goin’ to attach to these.”
Azarus reached into the pile of golden components and pulled out what looked to be two gold and silver caps. They were around the width of what was left of my forearm, with one Mithril side of it flat on each, and with a few notches on the surface of it. The other was gold and cupped in the shape of my stump. Inside were a few spikes extending from their surface.
Honoka took it from him, giving the component a critical eye. She nodded at her inspection. “Yes, we can work with this. As agreed, one of these is what will actually be grafted to the boy’s body. Against my wishes, he'll be awake during the procedure, to meld the gold to his flesh and bone. Once that’s done, he’ll do something to connect it to his soul as well. The whole time, I’ll be keeping him alive with the help of the fox.” Honoka stopped to give me a doubtful look. “Are you sure you can actually do this, boy? It’ll be beyond excruciating.”
Still, I nodded at Honoka. “Yeah, I can do it. I have Skill that will help with this.” In fact, I don’t even think I would have been capable of this at all with Ringed Mind. I’d be turning off my pain receptors during the operation with the help of my core ring, and wouldn’t feel a bit of it. I’d probably need to dull my sense of horror at performing surgery on myself with my middle ring, as well.
“All right then,” Azarus nodded, and then held up the second cap. “The actual arm will fit onto this. Once it’s all enchanted, I’ll assemble it, bones first, and then the gold casing around that. It’ll be mostly hollow, but that ain’t going to be a problem because you guys included a hardness enchantment.” He paused. “Right?”
Grey nodded, stepping up to examine the bits and pieces of my new arm. “Yes, we did. As well, if Nathan is successful in attaching the apparatus to his soul, then the prosthetic will benefit from the inherent toughness that is granted from a Status. Additionally, through the use of Nathan’s prototype ‘Soul Linking’ enchantment, he should be able to switch out arms in the future with ease. Much like how some Sculpted can swap body parts with similar ease, even if they were not born with them. Their soul inherently recognizes the new material as appropriate, and is thus accepted onto the body.” Grey scratched his chin. “You know, even if I designed the Sculpted enchantments myself, I was never able to narrow it down to which specific array was causing that interaction. However did you manage to figure it out, Nathan?”
I coughed into my fist, eyes flickering over to Sylvia for a moment. She carefully didn’t react, merely continuing to study the pieces of arm forged by Azarus. “Careful experimentation.”
Grey didn’t notice the byplay, but Honoka did. She narrowed her sunset eyes at me suspiciously. I carefully didn’t meet them. “Well!” Grey said, clapping his hands and maybe saving my life. “Good job, either way. Azarus, if you could bundle it up, Nathan and I will take it from here. I expect we’ll have finished the enchantments by the end of the day. Ms. Smelt,” He said, addressing the Sculpted forge master, who I had completely forgotten was still in here with us. She jumped at being addressed. “Thank you for the usage of your forge. I assure you, you’ll be appropriately compensated.”
The iron Sculpted woman shook her head furiously, waving her hands. “No, no!” She said in a flanging voice. “It’s fine! Just getting to work with you and Mr. Azarus was more than enough! I learned so much from this!”
Grey smiled politely. “I’ll make sure the payment is delivered promptly,” He said, ignoring her protestations. Smelt smiled at the Headmaster sheepishly, nodding in acceptance. Azarus had finished essentially sweeping all of his careful work into a sack by then and had come to stand next to Grey and I. Grey then turned to me. “Nathan, let’s go. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
I nodded at him, and then said my goodbyes to Sylvia and Honoka. Grey, Azarus, and I then left the forge for Grey’s tent, where we had turned our former drafting table into an enchanting workstation.
After dropping off his work, Azarus stuck around to inform us about the function of every piece of the arm, which was helpful. Each piece was going to need its own individual part of the enchantment.
Looking out over the pile of mystically charged prosthetic pieces, I got ready for a long day. I wasn’t sure I’d ever enchanted this much at once, even if I was going to have Grey’s help. I took a deep breath, and nodded to myself.
We got to work.
Sure enough, Grey was right. It took us the rest of that day in order to get everything done. By the end of it, every last piece of disassembled my new arm was nearly humming with the freshly charged new permanent enchantments set into it.
I was exhausted. I hadn’t quite pushed myself to a blackout like I had in Caer Drarrow, but it was close. I could barely keep my eyes open. Conversely, Grey still looked fresh.
I guess that was just the difference in our strengths right now.
Azarus had left a while ago, leaving us alone to our work.
Grey looked at me in concern, and lay a hand on my shoulder. “Nathan, perhaps you should rest for now. You still have the operation to do tomorrow. You need to conserve at least some strength.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m…going to go hit the hay. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Grey nodded at me. “Yes, before the operation. After that, I’m afraid I won’t see you until it’s completed. I have some administrative work I must do in preparation for the arrival of the main host. Mainly having to deal with the handing off of the former prisoners.”
I nodded to show I understood and then exchanged goodbyes with him. I stumbled out of his tent, and almost drunkenly made my way to my own. Once there, I barely had enough energy to say hello to Fade, before flopped onto my bunk.
I was out nearly instantly.
Tomorrow, I was finally going to have two arms again.
