Vance bulked at the price the young woman wanted for her services but gave her a single golden ingot as payment. She was new to town and looking for work with her sword arm. Galryth wasn't a fighter and frankly, the mines had become no place for anyone but those of late. His favorite spot had been infested by creatures from the Lady of the Wood, taking Haplo with their appearance. Now a new threat, in his other favorite spot, these, Eyeless.
"...Galryth will be able to tell you more." Vance motioned to Galryth as he finished speaking. Truth be told, Galryth must've zoned out because he didn't remember what Vance said before that.
The woman, she had introduced herself earlier as Caitriona, looked over to him now, a quiet smile as she looked him over, sizing him up. Vance made his way out, leaving Galryth to try to determine what had happened. He tended to get lost in his own thoughts far too often during these conversations and would often be left in these then confusing situations where he didn't know what was going on.
"So...where are these creatures?" Caitriona inquired, hopping up from her seat on the table, and awaiting his answer with peering eyes of emerald.
"Oh...the creatures." He stammered a moment before regaining composure and remembering what was going on. Surely they meant the eyeless...if not that's where they were going...no way he was going back to those northern mines. "I will show you, right this way."
They left, walking together, Galryth limping slightly still, though the wound from the "bear" the VIC released still bothering him. He hadn't done much hunting...but that was no fuckin' bear. He had no damn idea what it actually was, but he knew fully what it was not, and that was not a beast, it was a man...at one point it was at least.
The torchlight flickered off the cavern walls as they made their way through the winding tunnels of the caverns. He knew his way down here better than he did on the surface. Most of his time was spent down here, after all, mining ore and charting the different veins and minerals contents in the passages. It was information he was sure would be important later on for people to know.
"Careful now..." Galryth kept his voice low and stretched a hand out to signify to halt. "They are right up around this corner."
Caitriona nodded, pulling a decent looking sword from it's sheathed. He couldn't help but notice what kind of weaponry and armor people used. Just from how she held it, he could tell it was well made, but it was not made for her, the balance was off, and it was too long, it was made for someone taller than her, so it would never be a perfect fit for her. He could tell more about people by their items than by their actual features.
"Are we...going?" There was a hint of impatience in her voice.
He just nodded, blushing slightly, at the realization that he had zoned out again, likely standing there silently, staring at her sword, like an idiot. She probably didn't realize he was looking at the sword either...his cheeks flushed again, and he pulled the strange contraption from the custom leather sheath at his side. The schematics he found labeled it something called a "cyclone".
They crept around the corner in the darkness, the torches they held being the only light of the caverns, their flickering and popping, and scrappings of their feet all to be heard. Rounding the corner, and peering into the dark, they couldn't see anything but could hear in the not so far distance, something moving. What they didn't hear though....was the one just to the right of them....
Pain shot through their heads, as the noise hit them, taking them surprise and sending hands to their ears in reflex, and torches to thud on the cave floor. It felt as if his eardrums had both instantly ruptured with the noise that creature made before it lept onto Cait. She got her sword up in time to keep it from mauling her, luckily, or skillfully, he couldn't really tell.
A quick parry and slash, incapacitated the creature's right arm as she brought the blade horizontally in front of her, taking on a defensive posture, parrying it's retaliation as Galryth composed himself, and brought his own weapon back. His tongue crept it's way surreptitiously out of the corner of his mouth without his knowledge, and he closed one eye.
He brought his arm down in a vertically, following through straight, as if swinging a pickaxe, allowing the device to release from his grip at its natural flight point. The device took off, the gyro in the middle allowing the blades to spin horizontally as it whistled through the air, sailing over Cait's shoulder, and slicing through the creature's others arm before arcing its way back to him.
The abomination screeched, bringing its right claw up to its new wound. As soon as it did, Cait thrust her blade into the creature's exposed abdomen, and it collapsed to the ground with a final, gurgling sound.
He spent most of his time down there watching her fight out of the corner of his eye, taking mental notes. How someone meant to hold a blade and use it was almost as important in it's forging as anything else. If someone favored their back leg with the sword extended forward all the time and the pommel resting on the hip or near it, having a blade balanced at the hilt would actually fatigue them faster than one with a heavy pommel to act as a counterweight and balance point on the body while on the defense.
As they left, they exchanged stories. He told her about Haplo, and she of a cow she had brought with her, that sadly did not make it. That was another thing he liked to do, add in personal touches of his own, and their own stories into his works. He knew before they were done talking where he was going with this...
The iron began to look take the shape of a blade as he worked it with the hammer, slag, and sparks flying with the strikes, Smoke rose from the oil barrel as he thrust the red hot metal into it, the loud hiss silencing the blade's protest. Back into the fire, it went, until it began to glow as he worked the billows. He'd been at this for hours now, and it would be hours more...but once something was in his head...an idea...he couldn't stop. Not until that idea was a reality. Not until he could see it...and hold it...
The final forging of the blade, before sanding, tempering, and polishing, Galryth took out two pouches of materials he had ground up earlier into an extremely fine powder, sprinkling them over the blade and pounding it into it's red hot form. These were coal, and emeralds and gave the blade a unique color from the ratios of the materials he put in.
He slid on the hilt of beaten brass he had already forged, formed, and polished. This was his favorite part of the work usually, where he could be the most creative and he smiled to himself as he fastened it on with a brass pin through both pieces. The brass had been carved into two animals, a horse, and a cow, facing each other in the middle with their legs and tails arcing out at the ends to form the hand guard. Over the full tang of the blade he slid the maple handle, he had carefully sanded down maple wood and sprayed it with a concentrated alcohol solution before putting a torch to it. The quick but intense burn brought the woodgrains out, and the darkness of the red dye he added to the handle, and wooden sheath.
Finally, primitive shellac, from the crustacean hatchlings and a certain trees sap, was hardened over the woods to seal everything in. Last but not least, the oversized brass pommel, a giant square, one side with his insignia...except over a pair of pants...he smirked at the inside joke...the other, a carving of a woman missing one last detail. Carefully he steadied his hand with the tweezers, peering through the magnifying lens of the shop, timing his breaths to place the incredibly small emeralds into the carving's eyes.
