48 Adding the Magic

The next evening, the two Japanese kids woke up sore and complaining. Grumbling all through the thin soup and watered down beer that was served to us.

"Mghrr! My arms hurt so much!" Miyata gripped. "And why do they keep giving us beer? Some miso soup would be really nice to wake up to."

"What's miso soup?" Gerde asked, sipping the heavily watered down beer. She wasn't quite old enough to drink normal dwarven beer, and the beer was mainly there to kill any germs in the water, rather than for drunkenness. "Is it like cookies? Is it tasty?"

"It's not tasty like cookies. But it's warm, and it tastes of home." Tatsuki explained, he then proceeded to tell us all about miso soup, as well as other breakfast foods that were eaten in Japan.

"Interesting." Delimira commented. "You take several types of seagrass and fish scraps and put them into your foods? And you found it… enjoyable?"

"Kombu and Wakame are a bit more than 'seagrass'." Tatsuki said with a nostalgic look on his face. "But that's mostly right. Do you have stuff like this in your home?"

Both he and Miyata looked towards Delimira with hopeful looks on their faces, praying that they could taste food from their home in this world. Unfortunately, I'd lived on the elf island for over a year, and I could say with certainty that there was nothing even remotely Japanese there.

Delimira shook her head. "We don't have anything like you described. But the centaurs in the southern part of the island sometimes trade with the mermaids for seagrass, they then wrap a roast in the seagrass, and then let it cook while wrapped up.

"So we just talk to the mermaids if we ever want kelp or seaweed." Tatsuki nodded to himself, making a note to find a mermaid. Evidently, like every Japanese person I'd read about in light novels, he wanted to bring the cuisine of his homeland here.

"I'd rather just have cake or cookies." Gerde mumbled, looking longingly at my pack where I always kept a few to give her when she was good.

"Enough talk of food." Elder Thrikrondromm said, letting out a small burp. "Kvalinn. Tonight, you and I are going to add the runes to the Emperor's weapon. After that, we will make the weapons for the summoned heroes and the emperor's guards."

Breakfast, or technically dinner since it was the evening meal, was quickly shoved down and everyone got ready for another night of work. Since we would be working on the runes tonight, a secret magic that only a select few dwarves were allowed to know, everyone was wearing headphones with the Rune of Silence on their ears. Incidentally, the rune was invented by me, after I tried singing an Earth song about the sounds of silence while making a rune. Elder Thrikrondromm must have perfected the rune while I was traveling.

"Delimira, how are you so cool?" Miyata asked. "It's freaking boiling in here, but you are barely even sweating!"

"I've been wondering that too." My father commented with a side glance at the elf. "The gods created dwarves to work in extreme heat, but you seem to be handling the damned heat of this rune forge even better than me."

Delimira smiled slightly, and held out one of her long arms. "I'm only able to withstand the heat thanks to this." She pointed to a small stone on a bracelet. "Kvalinn and I made this talisman with dwarven and elven magics. It repels heat and keeps me cool even when next to the hottest fires. Gerde has one too." Gerde waved her arm to show off the talisman bracelet she had.

"No fair!" Miyata whined. "I want one too! Can you make one for me too?"

"I could." I said, more than a little tired of her whining. "But you'll have to make a choice, weapons, or heat talisman. I don't have time to make both." Miyata paused for a minute before answering.

"I'll take the weapons please."

"Good choice. Now put on the headphones, and don't take them off. We're about to perform rune magic that might cause your head to explode if you were to catch so much as a single syllable." Miyata put on her headphones in a panic, while Delimira cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Master, you never had me put on sound blocking headwear when you crafted runes nearby."

"That's because I trust that you won't attempt to steal these secrets for your own, or try to imitate me without my knowledge. But put on the headphones for Elder Thrikrondromm's sake. If he knew that you potentially had rune songs memorized, he might crush your skull to prevent the secrets from being known by an elf." Delimira nodded, and put on the headphones. Marveling at how soundproof they were.

"Kvalinn!" Elder Thrikrondromm barked. "Get to work. I want to see how much you've learned in the past few years. Make this sword the best weapon you can." Handing me the weapon, he stood back and stared at me like a hawk.

"Yes, Elder Thrikrondromm." I gripped the swords hilt feelingly, trying to decide what runes would fit best on the sword, and what would suit the emperor best. Eventually, I made my decision and got to work.

For the primary rune, I created the Rune of Fire, this would allow the blade to be wreathed in flame, and if enough magic was fed to it, then it would shoot scythes of flame across the battlefield. For the secondary rune, I crafted the Rune of Strength, pretty straightforward, more magic equals more strength. For the final rune, I added the Rune of War, this one was the most difficult one to add, and thus the rarest in the world. The Rune of War would boost the power of the wielder depending on how fierce the fighting. What made it difficult to make though, was that Rhyfel, the god of war, was notoriously fractious, and made it extremely challenging for any dwarf to put his power into a rune.

After adding the maximum amount of runes possible to the weapon, I called Delimira up onto the runeforge, and together we began adding elven magics onto the blade.

Now the elven way of channeling magic through objects and weapons is similar to the dwarven method of adding runes, but also unique. The elves would carve lines all along the weapon, from the hilt to the point of the blade, carving out magical spells and adding magical ingredients. This method allowed them to let their considerable internal magic flow through the weapon, and produce various effects.

The only problem with the elf method of making magical weapons, was that it relied entirely on the wielders magic stores. Once that was tapped out, the weapon became just a highly decorated hunk of metal, leaving you on the battlefield with no magical weapon, and completely helpless by the elves' standards.

Mixing the two magical methods removed that handicap. Runes had magic forced into them, and would last a hundred years as long as you didn't overuse them, and using the elven magic lines allowed the wielder of the weapon to overcharge the runes for extra performance using their internal magic.

Less than a half hour remained until our time to use the forge was over, but I finished my work just in time. Heaving an exhausted sigh, I handed the blade to Elder Thrikrondromm for inspection.

"Hmm." Was Elder Thrikrondromm's only response. He then proceeded to spend the next half hour scrutinizing every square inch of the weapon, leaving the clean up to me and everyone else.

After what seemed to be an eternity of tense waiting, he handed the sword back to me. "Well done, Kvalinn."

That was all he said before marching up the stairs. After we finished cleaning up, we followed after him and we were soon asleep in the room that had been lent to us.